Come the festive season one staple that is sure to be found in many homes is the Christmas tree.
Though it’s the most common feature, many do not know why it has come to hold such a high ranking during this special time of the year. The following information on the history of the Christmas tree is all from the site, WhyChristmas.Coml].
According to it, nobody is really sure when fir trees were first used as Christmas trees. It probably began about 1 000 years ago in Northern Europe.
It continued to state Christmas trees probably started out as ‘Paradise Trees’ (branches or wooden frames decorated with apples). These were used in medieval German mystery or miracle plays that were acted out in front of churches during Advent and on Christmas Eve. The Paradise Tree represented the Garden of Eden.
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 said to be 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. So he brought a tree into his house and decorated it with candles to represent the stars.
There are too many legends about the Christmas tree, one of them being: Once on a cold Christmas Eve night, a forester and his family were in their cottage gathered round the fire to keep warm. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. When the forester opened the door, he found a poor little boy standing on the doorstep, lost and alone. The forester welcomed him into his house and the family fed and washed him and put him to bed in the youngest son’s own bed (he had to share with his brother that night!). The next morning, Christmas morning, the family was woken up by a choir of angels, and the poor little boy had turned into Jesus, the Christ Child.
The Christ Child went into the front garden of the cottage and broke a branch off a tree and gave it to the family as a present to say thank you for looking after him. So ever since then, people have remembered that night by bringing a Christmas tree into their homes.
