Why do we decorate Christmas trees?
Ever wondered about the origins of the Christmas tree?
The Christmas tree is the star of the show and in most festive decorative schemes, the tree is the celebrity and all the other elements revolve around it.
Nobody is really sure when Fir trees were first used as Christmas trees and many early Christmas Trees seem to have been hung upside down from the ceiling using chains (hung from chandeliers/lighting hooks).
Traditionally, the evergreen fir tree was used to celebrate winter festivals (pagan and Christian) for thousands of years.
Pagans used branches of it to decorate their homes during the winter solstice, as it made them think of the spring to come.
The Romans used Fir Trees to decorate their temples at the festival of Saturnalia. Christians use it as a sign of everlasting life with God.
According to the Christianity Today website, the first recorded tree put up for Christmas can found in 1510 in Latvia and 1521 in Slovakia, however, the tradition of putting trees in homes during wintertime – and not just Christmas – goes back even further to pagan times.
The jump from being a wintertime decoration to a symbol of Christmas is believed to have come from trees being decorated in biblical and nativity plays.
The plays got rowdier and rowdier and many were banned in the 16th century, leading to people decorating their homes instead – with a Christmas tree taking pride of place.
The tradition grew from there and eventually churches started putting decorated Christmas trees up as well.
When churches began putting up Christmas trees, they would often go up next to shelves stacked with candles.
These candles were soon used to decorate the tree, which later evolved into putting up Christmas lights and ornaments.
Other early Christmas Trees, across many parts of northern Europe, were cherry or hawthorn plants (or a branch of the plant) that were put into pots and brought inside so they would hopefully flower at Christmas time.
If you couldn’t afford a real plant, people made pyramids of woods and they would decorate to look like a tree with paper, apples and candles.
Sometimes they were carried around from house to house, rather than being displayed in a home.
The first person to bring a Christmas Tree into a house, in the way we know it today, may have been the 16th century German preacher Martin Luther.
A story is told that, one night before Christmas, he was walking through the forest and looked up to see the stars shining through the tree branches.
It was so beautiful, that he went home and told his children that it reminded him of Jesus, who left the stars of heaven to come to earth at Christmas.
In many countries, different trees are used as Christmas trees.
In New Zealand a tree called the ‘Pohutakawa’ that has red flowers is sometimes used and in India, Banana or Mango trees are sometimes decorated.
Also read: How to take perfect Christmas photos
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