Christmas Tree Traditions
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Words: 460 Copyright: 2005 Marilyn Pokorney
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Modern day Christmas trees originated in the 19th century
Britain by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. During the
Victorian era trees were the focus of celebration and were
decorated with toys, cakes, bonbons and other sweet treats.
Young women in the households made decorations from paper, silk,
feathers, and lace to hold the treats.
After 1865 glass trinkets, wire ornaments were began in Germany.
By the 1880's Woolworth's sold commercially produced Xmas tree
ornaments.
In the early years real silver tinsel was used for Christmas
decorating and the modern version was began in the 1950's.
Spiders are sometime given credit for building webs in trees
which sparkled in the morning dew and sunlight which inspired
the invention of tinsel.
In America fake trees gained popularity early in the twentieth
century but not in Britain until the 1950's. While plastic and
aluminum were the trees of choice in America, the UK had a
penchant for feather trees in the 1920's which quickly
disappeared by the 1930's.
Originally in Victorian times candles were used for lights on
trees. The invention of electricity brought fairy lights to
America in the mid 1880's. By the 1920's candles were rarely
used.
President Franklin Pierce brought the first Christmas tree in
the White House during the mid-1850's. President Calvin Coolidge
started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the
White House lawn in 1923.
The fairy at the top of the Christmas tree was originally a
little figure of the baby Jesus.
Christmas tree farms originated during the depression.
Nurserymen found that they could make a profit by cutting
evergreens for Christmas trees when they couldn't sell them for
landscaping.
But all Christmas trees were not started as a symbol of
Christianity.
The Egyptians, Romans, Druids, and other cultures regarded the
tree as a symbol of life. They brought green branches into their
homes on the Winter Solstice as a symbol of life's triumph over
death.
Druid priests decorated oak trees with golden apples for their
winter solstice agricultural festivities.
In the middle ages, evergreen trees were decorated with red
apples on December 24 as the symbol of the Feast of Adam and Eve.
Even today, Christmas trees are unique to individual countries.
In Brazil where Christmas occurs during the summer, pine trees
are decorated with little pieces of cotton to represent falling
snow.
In Greenland Christmas trees have to be imported because no
trees live this far north.
In South Africa, Christmas is a summer holiday. Instead of
trees, windows are often draped with sparkling cotton, wool, and
tinsel.
And in the Ukraine a Christmas tree is not complete unless it
has a spider and web for good luck.
For more on Christmas Tree and other winter and holiday treats
visit:
http://www.apluswriting.net/christmas/xmastree.htm