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 In
fact, you have Prince Albert and his German heritage to thank for
any of your Christmas tree joys or troubles because it is through
him that this German Christmas tradition became popular in the
English-speaking world.
However, the tradition of bringing greenery indoors during
wintertime extends well before the 19th century when Victoria and
Albert popularized a decorated tree inside of living spaces. Ancient
cultures observed the winter solstice as a turning point in the year
when the days began to lengthen and they could look forward to
warmer weather and the planting season ahead. To celebrate this
pivotal time, ancient Egyptians brought palm rushes indoors to
welcome Ra, their sun god, back to health. Romans decorated homes
and temples with boughs of evergreen for the feast of Saturnalia
honoring Saturn, god of agriculture. Celtic Druids also decorated
their temples with evergreen boughs, and Vikings believed evergreens
to be a special gift from their own sun god, Balder.
Church records from England indicate holly and ivy were used to
decorate homes, streets, and parishes in some areas during the 14th
and 15th centuries, but the Christmas tree tradition we know today
appears to be rooted in the Middle Ages in what we now know as
Germany. According to Time magazine, “In 1419, a guild in Freiburg
put up a tree decorated with apples, flour-paste wafers, tinsel and
gingerbread. In ‘Paradise Plays’ that were performed to celebrate
the feast day of Adam and Eve, which fell on Christmas Eve, a tree
of knowledge was represented by an evergreen fir with apples tied to
its branches.” These trees were sometimes left up through the
Christmas season. Various reports of pine boughs cut for
decorations, laws against excessive cutting of pine boughs for
decoration, Christmas tree markets, and indoor decorated trees
appear in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries throughout the region
that became Germany.
First introduced to the United States by German
settlers, initially Christmas trees were relatively rare to be found
and were viewed by most Americans as an oddity, at best, and a pagan
symbol, at worst. Things changed abruptly in the mid-19th century.
As Time magazine reports,
“the image of a decorated Christmas tree with presents underneath
has a very specific origin: an engraving of Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert and their children gathering around a Christmas tree,
eyeing the presents underneath, published in the Illustrated London
News in 1848. The premier women’s magazine in America back then,
Godey’s Lady’s Book, reprinted a version of the image a couple of
years later as ‘The Christmas Tree.’” Queen Victoria and her royal
family were very popular and, therefore, very influential both in
the United Kingdom and across the pond, making an impact on trends,
behaviors, and, in this case, new traditions. Decorated Christmas
trees become popular immediately in both the U.K. and in America.
They were first sold commercially in the U.S. in 1851, cut down from
existing forests. By the 1890’s glass ornaments were being imported
to the U.S. from Germany, and Americans also enjoyed making homemade
Christmas ornaments, along with stringing popcorn, cranberries, and
nuts. Europeans tended to celebrate with small Christmas trees of
four feet or less or even table top trees. However, in true American
“Go big or go home” style, Americans wanted their trees floor to
ceiling. Tree decorations featured not just
crafts, glass, and edibles, but also candles. As in lit candles. As
in dead trees were brought inside wood-framed houses and decorated
with fire. Unsurprisingly, this led to many house fires at Christmas
time. Fortunately, not long after inventing the incandescent light
bulb, Thomas Edison constructed the first strand of electric lights
in 1880, which he strung outside his New Jersey laboratory.
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However, it was his business partner who put them to
Christmas use in 1882, according to the Library of Congress. Edward
H. Johnson, “Edison’s friend and partner in the Edison’s
Illumination Company, hand-wired 80 red, white and blue light bulbs
and wound them around his Christmas tree. Not only was the tree
illuminated with electricity, it also revolved.” In 1903, General
Electric offered for sale the first pre-assembled lights for the
regular consumer to purchase.
Although European by origin, America staked its own claim in the
Christmas tree field: the United States seems to be the first to
erect giant public Christmas trees to celebrate the season. The
first on record is in New York City in the 1910s, but the most
famous are probably the National Tree and the Rockefeller Center
Tree.
Fourteenth President Franklin Pierce was the first to
decorate an evergreen outside the White House in 1850, twenty years
before Christmas became a federal holiday, and President Benjamin
Harrison was the first to bring a Christmas tree indoors to
celebrate the season with his family. The first to host the National
Tree Lighting Ceremony at the White House, however, was President
Calvin Coolidge, who lit a balsam fir tree strung with 3000 lights
in 1923. Interestingly, the National Tree Lighting tradition was not
instigated by the spirit of the season, but rather, by the
electricity lobby hoping to encourage Christmas electricity use to a
country only 30% electrified.
The first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was set up in 1931
during construction of the Rockefeller Center. It was a 20 foot tree
put up by construction workers working on the site and decorated
with cranberries, paper garlands, and even tin cans. Two years later
another went up, this time 40 feet tall and strung with 750 lights.
Current iterations of the tree hold over 25,000 lights.
The origins of some modern traditions are sometimes obscure or lost
in the past, but we know exactly why we haul an evergreen into our
living rooms and bedeck it with baubles and lights every winter as a
cherished tradition. We can all thank Queen Victoria’s beloved
German Prince Consort, Albert.
[Stephanie Hall]
https://www.history.com/topics/
christmas/history-of-christmas-trees
https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/technology/item/who-invented-electric-christmas-lights
https://time.com/5736523/history-of-christmas-trees
https://time.com/4580764/national-christmas-tree-lighting-history-origins/
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