"O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree"

One of the most iconic things associated with Christmas decorations is, of course, the Christmas tree. Its origins as to why we decided to bring an evergreen tree inside a house reach back to pre-Christian times as symbols celebrating the victory of life over death at the onset of winter. It also smells pretty good too, but that may just be a matter of personal preference…

The concept of a Christmas tree is thought to have possibly been brought about in the 7^th century by St. Boniface.  But the first “official” Christmas tree in written record was in 1510 in the Latvian city of Riga. Men of the local merchants’ guild decorated the tree with roses, considered a symbol for the Virgin Mary. The tree was set up in the local marketplace for the festivities and then set alight on New Year’s Day. A plaque in Riga’s Town Hall Square reads: “The First New Year’s Tree in Riga”. So….do they really get credit for the first “Christmas” tree if they know it as a “New Year’s” tree? Either way, you might want to keep away from the last step of that old-timey tradition – your local fire department will thank you 😊

The Christmas tree actually had a precursor and had typically been decorated with apples. Why apples?  These decorations were a holdover from the 14^th and 15^th centuries when apples were used as props in “miracle plays” on the 24^th, which was Adam and Eve’s day. These plays were put on by the church to help tell stories from the Bible in a time when not many were literate, but finding blossoming apple trees in the middle of winter to teach with did become a problem. Luckily, a creative solution was created in the form of “Paradise Trees” which were spruce trees with apples tied to them for actors to reenact Eve’s temptation by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. After the “miracle plays” stopped being frequently performed, the concept of a tree decorated with apples was still popular. It’s likely why red and green (apples and tree) are the go-to colors for Christmas.

Germany seems to be the place where the closest connection with our modern Christmas tree traditions originated. In 1530, Christmas trees were being set up in Alasce, France (then German territory) for sale to be brought home and decorated. According to law, the trees were limited to “8 shoe lengths” (about 4 feet).  Gradually through the 1700s as the traditional spread more through Europe, candles more goodies were used to decorate the tree in addition to apples, usually sugary treats that were then eaten on The Twelfth Night of Christmas, January 6. These edible ornaments led to another fond term for the Christmas tree, the “sugar tree”.

In the late-1700, early 1800s, German immigrants brought the Christmas tree tradition to the United States. Many sites claim to be the first site in America to have had a Christmas tree – Bethlehem, PA has the earliest date of 1747 at the German Moravian Church settlement…if you count putting evergreen branches on a wooden pyramid as a Christmas tree (possibly the first artificial Christmas tree in the United States!). Windsor Locks, CT also claims to have the earliest date of 1777 while Easton, PA reports its 1816 tree as the first actual Christmas tree.  Regardless of the first spot, it took a while for the tree to make it to the White House: President Franklin Pierce is credited with bringing the first Christmas tree to the White House in either 1853 or 1856.  But it took until 1923 for President Calvin Coolidge to hold the first Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony.

Here are a couple of pictures of the tree Waterford would plant in previous years to welcome visitors as it stood at the entrance to Broad Street. This one might not have been the tallest, but it was still very merry!

Glass ornaments to add to, and eventually replace the sugary decorations, were introduced to the United States in the late 1800s. Again, Germany seems to be the place to find your Christmas spirit as they began to export these decorations which were mainly balls (chains of balls, toys and other figures soon became popular later). Artificial lights began to be poplar shortly after Thomas Edison displayed the first electrically-lit Christmas tree in 1882.

The first artificial tree in the United States was offered around1883 by Sears & Roebuck with the deal of 33 limbs for $.50 and 55 limbs for $1.00 to build your tree.  The trees in these images from the museum's collection are from around that time, so it’s possible that they might have been some of the first mass-produced artificial trees on sale in the United States.

Christmas 1894

Christmas 1895

                                         

Christmas 1896

Around the early 1900s, it came to the attention of conservationists – a movement that was beginning its growth and would eventually come to be a major part in the formation of the national parks – that the evergreen trees used as Christmas trees were being rapidly depleted. They had been taken from the forest randomly at first, but more and more Christmas vendors setting up shop had made a good dent in the natural offering of trees from which to pick that perfect tree.

Conservationists first offered the alternative of artificial “snow” covered trees which was a branch of a deciduous tree wrapped in cotton. Unsurprisingly, people tended to prefer the full-size tree to the Charlie Brown-esque little tree that probably wouldn’t have supported even that one red ornament.  Even Theodore Roosevelt was concerned – so much so that he tried to stop the practice of having Christmas Trees!

The author's attempt to portray a"snow" tree

Luckily, his sons didn’t agree and were able to persuade him with the help of conservationist Gifford Pinchot that there was a way to keep the Christmas trees and the forests. Thus began the Christmas Tree Farms, started in 1901 with W.V. McGalliard planting 25,000 Norway spruce on his New Jersey farm. Today, approximately 25-30 million real trees are sold in the United States every year, with almost all from Christmas tree plantations.

Regardless if you celebrate Christmas, the wonderfully festive tree is meant to be a reminder of the connections we have with family and friends.

Merry Christmas!