The Christmas tree is an iconic part of the holiday season, with the evergreen branches that we move inside and decorate as part of the holiday tradition. Whether artificial or a real tree, the Christmas Tree has an interesting history that goes back to early Christianity and also even further back.
The start of decorating with a Christmas Tree goes back to Ancient Egypt, when the Egyptians would celebrate the Winter solstice. The Egyptians would chop down these evergreen trees and place them in temples and their homes to acknowledge the start of the winter season, the time when their main god, Ra, god of the sun, was the weakest. After the darkest day of the year, the Winter Solstice, the sun would shine brighter and for longer each day, and they thought that this symbolized that Ra triumphed over the dark.
The evergreen tree was also a symbol in the Norse tradition. You might recognize the shape of it from their heavenly place of Yggdrasil, the shape of their world looking like a christmas tree, you might remember this name from The Avengers. The tree originally looked like a large oak, but then came to symbolize the Christmas tree shape with Saint Boniface started converting the druids to Christianity, as the triangular shape could represent the trinity.
The celebration over the winter solstice for these pagans then was turned slowly into the Christmas time we know today. The party was still celebrated but for another reason, and the evergreen tree continued to be a part of the tradition.
Martin Luther, who sparked the protestant revolution in the 16th Century, brought the Christmas tree to our traditions that we know today. In Germany, it became a tradition to build pyramids of wood and bedeck them with evergreens and candles to celebrate Christmas. Luther then decided to continue this tradition and brought an evergreen tree inside and covered it in wire and candles.
It wasn’t until the late 19th century that the evergreen became the ubiquitous decoration for the holiday season. In 1846 a sketch was published of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with their children next to a Christmas Tree in Windsor Castle and then the idea of the Christmas Tree finally caught on for the masses.
In the early 1900’s a flood of ornaments swept onto the scene and people would decorate their trees with strands of popcorn or marzipan, apples, and candles. In 1880 Thomas Edison created the first strand of string lights, and in 1882, Edison’s partner, Edward H. Johnson hand wired red, white, and blue string lights to wrap around the first christmas tree. And by 1903, General Electric sold light kits to regular consumers to use electricity to light up their trees.
In 1923, Calvin Coolidge became the first president to light a national Christmas tree, and he did so with 3000 electric lights, a feat at the time! And then in 1931, the first tree went up in Rockefeller Plaza in New York, one of the big traditions we have in the winter season.
So now you know the history of the Christmas tree, next time you see one, you might look at it a little differently, and share the story of how this holiday tradition came to be.
