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- Today, Christmas trees are treated as a secular element of the holiday, but they actually started with pagan ceremonies that were changed by Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Because the evergreen flourishes all year round, it came to symbolize eternal life through Christ's birth, death, and resurrection.
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Dec 20, 2022 · A special ceremony is held in Norway in November, when the tree is cut down in the forest in Norway. Then, it comes over to the UK by sea, before being driven to London on a big lorry.
- Overview
- Competing claims in Northern Europe
- Christmas tree origins in Germany
- Trees become trendy in the United Kingdom
- Tree lighting ceremonies in the United States
- Related: Holiday lights around the world
- New Year’s trees in Russia
- Antarctica’s scrap-metal Christmas tree
- Christmas boats of Greece
- Tree plundering in Scandinavia
From Estonia to Antarctica, this once-pagan symbol has taken on many strange forms.
In December 1848, an illustration showed Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their children admiring a Christmas tree. Many variations of the image began to circulate, popularizing the festive trend.
Christmas trees are a strange tradition, if you think about it: Every December, people in regions around the world head to the nearest forest, chop down a tree, drag it into their homes, adorn it with lights, baubles, and tinsel—then unceremoniously drag it to the curb in January.
But evergreen boughs have been essential seasonal decor since ancient times as part of pagan winter solstice celebrations. “Evergreens at midwinter festivals were traditional since the ancient world, signifying the victory of life and light over death and darkness,” writes Carole Cusack, professor of religious studies at the University of Sydney, in an email.
Latvia and Estonia both claim to have been home to the first Christmas tree. Latvia traces its Christmas tree traditions back to 1510, when a merchant guild called the House of the Black Heads carried a tree through the city, decorated it, and later burned it down. Meanwhile, Estonia has countered those claims, saying it has evidence of a similar festival hosted by the very same guild in its capital city Tallinn in 1441.
(Related: Ancient matriarchal customs thrive on this Estonian island.)
Left: A holiday market in Estonia’s capital Tallinn features a large Christmas tree. Both Latvia and Estonia claim to be the birthplace of the Christmas tree.
Photograph by David Min, Getty Images
Right:
A Christmas tree towers outside St. Peter’s church in Riga, Latvia.
Instead, Cusack says it’s more likely that the Christmas tree as we know it was born in the Alsace region during the 16th century. (Now part of France, the region was considered German territory at the time.) Historical records indicate that a Christmas tree was raised in the Strasbourg Cathedral in 1539—and that the tradition had grown so popular throughout the region that the city of Freiburg banned felling trees for Christmas in 1554.
(Related: Read the surprisingly tangled history of the origins of Santa Claus.)
Folklore offers a number of different explanations for the meaning of the tree. Some suggest that it was inspired by the paradise tree, a symbol of the Garden of Eden that featured in a medieval play about Adam and Eve. Others believe the Christmas tree evolved from Christmas pyramids, wooden structures decorated with evergreen boughs and religious figures. Cusack doesn’t believe there’s any substance to those theories; instead, she says, “The Christmas tree was intended to be religiously neutral in the context of Christianity.”
Still, the tradition caught on among German families and slowly evolved through the years to what we know today. Cusack says that Protestant reformer Martin Luther is often credited with being the first to put lights on the Christmas tree—with candles rather than today’s electric lights, which were invented in 1882—after a nighttime stroll through the forest with twinkling stars above. German emigrants took these traditions with them as they resettled in other countries. By the 18th century, Cusack says, Christmas trees were all over Europe.
Queen Charlotte—the princess of a German duchy who married King George III in the mid-18th century—is thought to have introduced the first Christmas tree to the royal household. But it was another British queen who made Christmas trees the seasonal icon they are today.
In 1848, Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert (another German transplant) captured the imaginations of royal watchers around the world when the Illustrated London News published an illustration of their family gathered around a decorated Christmas tree. Queen Victoria was a trendsetter of her time, and so the tradition took off around the world.
Germany’s Christmas tree tradition also likely arrived in the United States in the late 18th century, when Hessian troops joined the British to fight in the Revolutionary War. In the years that followed, German immigrants also brought the tradition to the U.S. and, over time, historian Penne Restad writes that they “became a point of fascination for other Americans.”
(Related: Rockefeller, the viral stowaway Christmas tree owl, flies free.)
American families adopted the Christmas tree more widely after 1850, when the Philadelphia-based magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book republished the royal family’s Christmas scene from Illustrated London News. But the magazine made a few tweaks, editing out Victoria’s crown and Albert’s royal sash to transform them into one version of an American family.
Today, the lighting of two beloved U.S. Christmas trees are part of the country’s ritual for ushering in the holiday season. In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge oversaw the lighting of the first National Christmas Tree; a decade later, in 1933, New York City lit the first Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, which has since become a must-visit for tourists and New Yorkers alike each holiday season. Both trees have been illuminated every year since, save for a few years in the 1940s when they went dark due to blackout restrictions during World War II.
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The aroma of toasted almonds and glogg heralds the arrival of Saint Lucia to this charming river town illuminated all season long. Five million lights glitter on the buildings and on the 700 Christmas trees at Liseberg Amusement Park’s Christmas Market (Scandinavia’s largest). Choirs sing and sweethearts smooch along a two-mile Lane of Light leading to the harbor beginning in December.
Gothenburg, Sweden
The aroma of toasted almonds and glogg heralds the arrival of Saint Lucia to this charming river town illuminated all season long. Five million lights glitter on the buildings and on the 700 Christmas trees at Liseberg Amusement Park’s Christmas Market (Scandinavia’s largest). Choirs sing and sweethearts smooch along a two-mile Lane of Light leading to the harbor beginning in December.
Photograph by Roberto Rinaldi, SIME
Christmas trees have long been a tradition in Russia. Yet the brightly decorated trees that light up the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square every December these days are not for Christmas. These are New Year’s trees, or yolka, a tradition that emerged out of a ban on Christmas trees in the wake of the Russian Revolution.
In the 1920s, the newly installed Soviet government embarked on a campaign against religion—beginning with what it considered “bourgeois” traditions like Christmas. With Christmas trees and other customs forbidden, the secular regime began to encourage citizens to celebrate New Year’s instead.
Even Antarctica has had its share of Christmas tree traditions—although there are no trees to be found in the South Pole. In 1946, crew members aboard a U.S. Navy expedition to Antarctica celebrated Christmas at sea by tying a spruce tree from Canada to their mast. More than half a century later, researchers based at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South P...
In Greece, people once decorated Christmas boats rather than trees in honor of St. Nicholas, the country’s patron saint and protector of sailors. Not only would families place small wooden boats inside their homes to symbolize a welcome return from life at sea, but lighted boats took the place of honor in public squares of cities such as Thessaloniki.
In modern days, however, the Christmas boat has been eclipsed by the Christmas tree. But such boats can still be spotted in some island communities.
Since the 17th century, Scandinavian families have dedicated a feast day to plundering their Christmas trees for sweets before throwing them out. Observed on January 13, Saint Knut’s Day is named for King Canute, who ruled in the 11th century. Primarily celebrated in Sweden, the holiday is considered the 20th and last day of Christmas—unlike other countries where the Christmas period is 12 days long.
To celebrate St. Knut’s Day, families hang cookies and other treats on their Christmas trees for children to raid. Once a family has finished stripping the tree of its decorations, people sing while tossing it ceremoniously out the door. (In Norway, the tree is chopped up and thrown in the fireplace instead.)
- Amy Mckeever
May 23, 2024 · Christmas tree, live or artificial evergreen tree decorated with lights and ornaments as a part of Christmas festivities. While Christmas trees are traditionally associated with Christian symbolism, their modern use is largely secular. Learn more about Christmas trees, including their history.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
We decorate Christmas trees at home in December, but why do we have Christmas trees & where does the tradition originate from? Read the Christmas tree history.
Dec 21, 2022 · The Christmas tree tradition, as we know it today, is widely credited to have started in 16th century Germany, where Christians began to decorate their trees or pyramid-shaped stacks of wood...
Nov 28, 2023 · The history of Christmas trees has many roots, ranging from the use of evergreens in ancient Egypt and Rome to the German traditions of candlelit trees that made its way to America in the 1800s.
May 22, 2020 · Christmas trees represent eternal life found only in Jesus Christ. Trace the origin of the beloved holiday tradition of putting up a decorated tree.
