The Christmas tree is, when one thinks about it, one of the most bizarre Christmas traditions. Yet no house would feel complete at this time of year without the inclusion of a brightly decorated evergreen taking up a corner of the room.
The Christmas tree has a colourful history and has been part of the midwinter festival since before Christ. Transformed over the centuries to be included within the Christian version of the holiday, I am sure no one could ever have predicted that today, families would be decorating artificial trees in Australia, cutting down forests of pines in the USA and erecting gigantic 20 metre trees in Trafalgar Square to rival even Nelson’s Column.
Tree Decoration as a Matter of Survival
The oak was the original Christmas tree of choice, even before there was a Christmas. Before the absorption of the pagan midwinter festivals into the Christian Christmas celebrations, the northern European tribes worshipped the trees as totems of nature. The oak was seen as the greatest of trees and was decorated each midwinter with bright colours.This was an attempt to lure nature to return to the trees each Spring.
There were many different tree rituals throughout the world in early history. The Norse nations practiced the tradition of the Yule Log that was intended to have the same purpose.
The ancient Egyptians revered the evergreen and would bring their branches indoors for the winter solstice.
With the survival of the people so closely tied to the whims of nature, it is no surprise that so many superstitions and rituals developed around the idea of ensuring a quick thaw and a fast return to
life after the midwinter. These were not mere festivities, but were carried out with a deeply held belief that failure to do so could bring disaster upon the community.
The Pine Defeats the Oak
After the Christmas holiday began to travel across Europe, the old midwinter feasts became entwined with the new Christian celebration. Most notably, the Germanic tribes still fervently hung onto their tree
worshipping rituals, despite the Church’s attempt to draw the people into the Christian fold.
A compromise was reached by the fortuitous and effective substitution of the pine for the oak. By suggesting the pine as the tree of worship, the Church was able to suggest a Christian meaning for
the ritual by pointing to the three corners of the pine tree triangular shape as representing the three parts of the holy trinity. This suggestion allowed the pagan tribes to continue their deeply-entrenched custom of tree decoration at midwinter whilst acknowledging the Christian celebration.
The Christmas Tree Travels Abroad
The Christmas tree remained popular in these northern European areas for centuries and didn’t arrive in England until the early nineteenth Century. Even then, the first recorded English Christmas trees did not
seem to catch on, even though the royal household had taken to the tradition in a small way in the 1830′s, as recorded in the young Victoria’s diaries.
Famously, it wasn’t until the German born Prince Albert continued his family tradition by presenting Queen Victoria with a spectacular Christmas tree, sometime between 1846-48, that others latched onto the fad.
It was a while later before the Christmas tree became popular in the United States, by which time the original pagan origins were long forgotten.
The Modern Tree
These days, there is an irony in our modern Christmas tree. Hundreds of thousands of trees are chopped down to stand, shedding pine needles into the carpet over the course of a month, weighted down with electric lights and plastic ornaments. Alternatively, fake trees with metal trunks and tinsel branches are snapped together in a strange, artificial parody of nature. And we do these things without ever questioning why.
For a tradition that started out as a ritual to preserve a powerful link to the natural world, the modern Christmas tree has now become a surreal centerpiece to the family holiday. But it’s one I know I can’t do without.