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The Christmas Tree: A History

The first modern Christmas tree* 

by Michael Corthell

Long before the advent of Christianity, evergreens had a special meaning for people during the winter.

Just as we today decorate our homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient humans hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many tribes it was believed that evergreens would keep witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness at bay.

In December 1846, the popular Illustrated London News published an image* of Queen Victoria standing with Prince Albert and their children around a decorated Christmas tree. Prince Albert was a German and he brought the long standing family tradition to England with him.

Christmas trees originated during the Renaissance in early modern Germany. Its 16th-century origins are sometimes associated with Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther, who is said to have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree.

The earliest known firmly dated representation of a Christmas tree is on the keystone sculpture of a private home in Turckheim, Alsace (then part of Germany, today France), with the date 1576.

The fashion conscious on both sides of the Atlantic immediately seized upon the idea and the Christmas tree tradition was born.

The symbol of Christmas soon spread far and wide — largely through businesses competing to present ever bigger and better adorned trees to attract customers into their stores.

In America, homeowners began to buy their own from about the 1850s. Soon the tree’s troubled pagan past was forgotten, and was embraced as a time-honored tradition.

Briefly then, the symbolic meaning of the Christmas tree, according to pagan culture represents life, rebirth, and the perseverance needed to endure the winter months. 

The tree was then adopted by Christians who had long held that the evergreen tree was a symbol of the Tree of Life.


Martin Luther, the first Christian to bring a Christmas
tree into his home, with family in 1536.

Early Christians knew their symbolism well, as they added candles and apples to their Christmas firs. These candles represented the light of Christ. The apples symbolized knowledge which spawned man’s original sin according to Christian belief.

For a detailed read about the history, and origins of the Christmas tree follow these links:


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