Around December every year a remarkable phenomenon occurs. As men in red plush suits with snowy white beards begin to appear in department stores everywhere and children throughout the land become models of good behavior, something even more puzzling takes place. It happens gradually at first, and then more and more quickly as the month progresses. Brilliantly colored lights, shiny decorations, holly and evergreen branches begin to adorn people’s homes and yards. Soon the entire neighborhood is gaily adorned with a colorful array of decorations and lights, all to celebrate the Christmas season. And of course, once the hustle and bustle of decorating the outside dies down, a Christmas tree aglow with lights and all sorts of ornaments is erected in each and every home. Why do we go through all of this expense and effort?

Pre-Christmas and Ancient Man

The reason is that it is a part of mankind’s heritage, dating back many centuries ago. Ancient man followed this custom before anyone ever said the word Christmas. He believed that by decorating the bushes in the winter time, he could entice the spirits roaming the earth and seeking shelter from the bitter cold and wind to come and live in them.

It is not known what exactly they used for decorations, maybe bits of colored cloth, stones, etc. People had to use whatever was available. The people of Mesopotamia (Babylonia in the Middle East, modern Iraq), placed a great value on fringes. Fringed garments were a status symbol, and when the old article of clothing was no longer useable, the fringe would be taken off and put onto a new garment before throwing it away. So, considering this, it is possible that they might have used fringes to decorate their bushes.

Later, people began the custom of taking branches into their homes to give the spirits living inside shelter, releasing them in the early spring when the first delicate buds emerged on the trees. Two customs we observe today came from this:

1. The bringing of evergreens into the home at Christmastime.

2. The superstition all decorations must be taken down by the end of Christmas, or there shall be bad luck.

In the beginning, people kept up their decorations for much longer than we do now, the Christmas season not ending until Candlemas, the 2nd of February, which was closer to spring.

The custom of decorating was approved and even adopted by the Christian Church in the 6th century. Missionaries were sent to Britain from Rome. St. Gregory realized that it went against human nature for people to abandon their beliefs and practices honed over centuries, and immediately embrace Christianity and its ways. He told his missionaries to make allowances. “If the people decorate their temples to Saturn, let them in future still decorate them — but for the festival of Christ’s Birth,” was the message.

St. Augustine, founder of the first great church in Britain, followed this rule, and was rewarded by being able to convert 10,000 people one Christmas, to the teachings of Christianity.

For centuries the natural evergreen boughs were the only decorations people had for Christmas. Branches of holly or “holm” as it was usually called, were popular because of their red berries. Mistletoe also was used because it too had berries which brightened up the greenery.

Mistletoe and the Holy Bough

The use of mistletoe as a Christmas decoration began innocently enough in the Middle Ages. At that time, people used to make a double hoop of evergreens twined around a pliable wood such as willow. This created a spherical object with four sides of evergreens — anything which was green would do, such as holly, bay, rosemary, box, yet. In the middle they would put a symbol of the Holy Family, or maybe a Baby Jesus set on a mossy bed. The bough later became decorated with ribbons, gilded nuts, fruits etc., and mistletoe was once again used as well.

This bough, called a Holy Bough, was set up hanging from a beam just inside the house entrance. The local priest would bless the boughs in his parish at a special ceremony. The custom was to embrace under this bough, any visitor who came to the house over the Christmas season, as a sign that all bad feeling and enmity was forgotten. The custom passed to Britain from Germany, where a small fir tree was hung upside-down in the same way.

When the Parliamentarians and Puritans under Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas and all associated with it, they included these Holy Boughs as well. Several decades later, when the ban was lifted, many customs did not re-establish as they were before. By the 18th century the Holy Bough had become known as the “Holly Bough” or “Holly Bunch”. The quick kiss under it became a tradition. It was also known as the “Mistletoe Bough” and the “Kissing Bunch”. The name change marking the change in the custom from a symbol of peace to something entirely different.

During the latter years of Queen Victoria’s reign the British instituted a new custom. Each time a kiss was stolen under the mistletoe, a berry was plucked off, and when there were no more berries, the opportunity for kisses ended.

This custom remained solely a British custom for quite some time, and only in the mid-20th century did it begin to spread to other countries. It was also at this time that natural evergreens began to be replaced by artificial decorations. Crepe paper twists and glued paper chains were popular in both America and Britain in the late 19th century, but usually still sharing a place with sprigs of holly tucked behind mirrors and pictures.

Early American Decorations

In America, decorations varied according to the areas they were found in. Areas which had primarily German settlers would have wreaths and candle decorations, while in areas such as Williamsburg, where the gentry supported the Anglican church, the custom in the mid-18th century was to stick holly into the window frames.

It is popular on both sides of the Atlantic to have fruit decorations. This is done in the belief that they are reproducing the natural decorations of our forefather. Unfortunately, this assumption is in error. In both countries, fruit was far too expensive in the middle of winter to waste on door decorations.

Because of its size and wide variety of climate, parts of America did have fruit available in winter time, and while we lack evidence to support the theory that fruit was used for Christmas decorations in those areas, it is possible that they might have done so. Also, later immigrants from Mediterranean countries such as Italy, had taken memories of fruited garlands to America with them. As fruit became more easily obtainable in modern times, they could have used it for this purpose.

Fruit

In modern day Europe fruits and nuts and gingerbreads were popular gifts, and small locally grown apples, hard pears and nuts were placed on Christmas trees throughout Europe and Britain. But only locally grown and plentiful fruits, which were later eaten from the branches as part of the Christmas feasting.

Christmas Markets and the Wax Ornament

The European Christmas Markets began in Nuremburg, Germany in the 16th century. They were practical markets with everything a housewife needed to prepare for Christmas. No one could have guessed that these rather ordinary markets would be the origins for the beginning of Christmas tree decorating.

The gingerbread makers used honey in their baking, and in those days the honey came raw in honeycombs straight from the beehives. They were left with large quantities of wax, which they began to clean, and press into the carved wooden moulds used for making the gingerbread. In the 16th–17th century these moulds were scrolls, cherubs and plaque shapes, which were used in the making of plaster cornices for architectural work. Later came scenes from the Nativity story, men on horseback, animals and many other novel designs.

A ribbon was placed on the wax models before the wax set, and they were painted or gilded and sold as “Fairings”, souvenirs of the Christmas Fair. People would take them home and hang them on their trees. The most popular were angels and cherubs, and frequently families would have a tree filled with many angels, collected from years and years of fairs.

In the 18th century, Nuremburg began producing an angel called a “Rauschgoldengel”, which means gilded tin angel. It had a wax face and hands, and a gown and crown made from tiered gilded tin.

The glass ornaments industry did not begin until the mid-19th century, so the people were delighted with the wax ornaments.

The Glass Christmas Ornament

Glass making was done in Bohemia (modern Czechoslovakia) and along the border areas with Germany at a place in Thuringia called Lauscha. Early glass balls were made at Lauscha as end of the day games. Glass blowing was hot, thirsty work, and the blowers would consume quite a bit of ale in the course of a day. Mild though it was, by the time the work day was almost through, many were a little merry, and would have these glass blowing games to see who could blow the largest ball before the glass burst. These balls were gathered up by the wives, who would silver them, by swirling a silver nitrate solution around the insides. Then they were sold as Christmas balls to avert evil from the home over Christmas, hung or stuck onto sticks in the hallway of the house. This custom was a later version of the Holy Bough customs.

When gas came to Lauscha in 1863, glass blowing became much easier. Now the glass could be blown much thinner without bursting, and it was possible to use wooden moulds to blow the glass into to create shapes and “figurals”. By the 1870s, Lauscha was exporting glass balls to Britain and America. By the 1890s just about everybody in Britain had trees laden with glass shapes.

Europe clung to tradition for a while longer, alternating glass with traditional fruits (Germany), paper scissorcuts (Poland), and straw (many alpine areas in Switzerland, Austria etc.) The Italians had a Ceppo instead of a tree, which was pyramid shaped shelves with a Nativity on one shelf and fruits and floral decorations on the others. Scandinavian countries had ideas that were a far cry from these, and used grain garlands, straw goats, little wooden gnomes called Tomte, Nisse or Gubbe. Red and white themes and many candles.

Around 1880 or so, F. W. Woolworth’s began selling imported German Christmas ornaments on a large scale basis. At first it wasn’t a given that sales would thrive since these items were still considered unusual, but by 1890 Woolworth was selling $25 million dollars per annum in ornaments.

Christmas Tree Lights

There is a legend that says that Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant religion began the custom of putting candle lights onto trees. The end of the 19th century saw experiments with gas lights (many blew up!) and early electric lights too. The first electrically lighted tree was created by Edison in America, in the 1880s.

Since many people still preferred the use of candles, it was not until World War II that most of Britain converted to electrically lit trees.

Post-War Decorations

The 1950s brought with them the widespread use of artificial decorations in both America and Britain. This trend lasted until the late 1970s, when natural decorations and the Victorian Christmas look became popular again in America, and Britain followed the same path in the late 1980s.

Reference Source:

The Christmas Archives

Christmas Decorations — A Potted History of Decorating

http://www.christmasarchives.com/decorations.html