The History and Origins of the Christmas Tree

The Christmas season has many lovely traditions and symbols, but the Christmas tree is by far the most well known, cherished and enduring of them all. Christmas just would not be complete without an evergreen tree filling the house with its delightful fragrance, its graceful boughs laden with sparkling decorations, shining its fairy-lit beauty upon a room.

The tradition of a holiday tree has been around since ancient times, originating long before the first Christmas. Its becoming an integral part of winter celebrations was assured centuries earlier by vastly different groups of people.

Many pagan festivals used evergreen trees to honor their gods and spirits, even going so far as to consider it sacred.

In Northern Europe the Vikings viewed the evergreen as a symbol of hope, a reminder that the bleakness and bitter cold of winter would end and the green of spring would return fresh with the promise of new growth and beauty.

The Druids of ancient England and France decorated oak trees with fruit and candles to honor their gods of the harvests. Evergreens too were used during the winter solstice rituals. Along with these there were holly and mistletoe as symbols of eternal life, and evergreen branches placed over doors to keep away evil spirits.

Not to be left out, the Romans celebrated the festival of Saturnalia and decorated trees with metal toys and candles. They even decked out their houses with greenery and bright lights and exchanged gifts, long before these were established customs. They gave coins for prosperity, pastries for happiness, and lamps to light one’s journey through life.

As time passed, many stories and legends grew up around the Christmas tree, some even taking on a mythical aura. There is for instance, the story of Saint Boniface. He was an English monk trying to convert pagans to Christianity. One day he discovered a group of pagans in the wilderness surrounding an oak tree and preparing to sacrifice a child to their cruelly demanding gods. To stop the sacrifice and save the child, Saint Boniface knocked the great oak to the ground with one blow of his fist. A small fir immediately grew up to replace it, and Saint Boniface told the astounded pagans that this was the Tree of Life and represented the life of Christ.

Another legend is that of Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant religion. As he was walking through the woods late one winter night, he noticed that it was particularly clear out with hundreds of stars shining through the branches of the trees like tiny twinkling lights. He found the beauty of the sight so inspiring that he cut down a small evergreen and brought it home. He used candles on the tree’s branches for stars and was thus able to share the wonder of the scene he’d witnessed with his family.