Take a drive around and you will see that Coronation Drive is ablaze, the banks have their customary displays and Parliament Road is cheery with lights. Inside commercial buildings there are some stunning Christmas trees, for example in the Eldorado shopping mall, tucked away behind the escalator. The Post Office is resplendent with both decorations suspended from the ceiling and a pretty tree. One of the earliest trees to gladden this writer’s heart was erected in Fair Play Supermarket. At the end of November, all of a sudden, Christmas was coming.

The Christmas tree has a long history. Before Christianity the Druids used fir tree branches to decorate their homes at the time of the Winter Solstice, December 22. The Romans used green branches to decorate their homes at the festival of Saturnalia, the celebration of the God of Agriculture, Saturn. It is said that in the seventh century St Boniface, when he travelled to Germany to convert the people of Thuringia to Christianity, introduced the fir tree to symbolise the Holy Trinity, as it is triangular in shape. Thuringia was to become an important centre of Christmas decoration production centuries later.

Fairplay Christmas Tree

The first decorated Christmas tree is reported to have been in Riga, Latvia, in 1510. Martin Luther, in the early sixteenth century, is supposed to have decorated with candles a fir tree he had brought indoors. He wanted to show his family how he had seen the stars twinkling at night through the snow covered branches of the fir trees he had encountered on his way home. Another story says that he lit the candles to honour Christ’s birth.

According to http://www.christmasarchives.com/trees.html, a visitor to Strasbourg in 1601 records a tree decorated with “wafers and golden sugar-twists (barley sugar) and paper flowers of all colours”. Indeed, food decorations symbolized the biblical notion of plenty.

Tinsel, for centuries made of real silver, first appeared about 1610 in Germany. It was durable but tarnished in the light of the candles. It was still made of silver into the middle of the twentieth century.

Oliver Cromwell (1599 – 1658) felt that Christmas carols, decorated trees and expressions of joy desecrated Christmas, a view echoed in America by the Puritan William Bradford (1590 – 1657), New England’s second governor, who tried to penalise frivolity of any kind.
The Georgian German kings brought the Christmas tree tradition to the UK but it was unpopular. For many years only those with German friends or business associates decorated fir trees at Christmas. Germany produced the decorations of tinsel, beads and candles and the trees were small and individual; each person having their own tree on a table with gifts beneath.
The first record of decorated trees in America is in the 1830’s in Pennsylvania, erected by German settlers. However, most Americans thought of them as symbols of paganism and did not accept them.
Queen Victoria married Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840. In 1846 the couple and their children were pictured in the Illustrated London News gathered around a large decorated Christmas tree. The Christmas tree immediately became fashionable, not just in the United Kingdom but also across the Atlantic, although it is also said that Hessian soldiers brought the tradition with them to the United States during the American Revolution. Decorations were mostly home made and consisted of quilted items such as stars and snowflakes, or papers holding sugared almonds. Silver tinsel and angels came from Germany and the whole was lit with candles in wooden holders.
Such was the popularity of the Christmas tree in Germany that the fir tree was in danger of mass obliteration. Since most people only wanted a small tree, the top was loped off of larger trees meaning they did not grow any further. Laws were introduced to stop people having more than one tree in an effort to stop the devastation.
In America, Christmas trees were popular in pockets of the population. Where there were immigrants from Germany, there were Christmas trees.

From the 1870’s decoration production took off. Thuringia produced glass decorations which were sought-after status symbols of wealth. From the 1870’s to the 1930’s the finest Christmas tree decoration moulds were made in Germany and there were nearly five thousand different types. FW Woolworth was the first to sell the decorations in the US from the late 1880’s.
The first electric tree lights were available in 1882. Few could afford them as they were hand made and so most continued with candles. In 1892 the US patent on small metal hooks to hang decorations was taken out.
In Britain late Victorian trees began to be decorated more elaborately and the bigger the tree the better the family’s standing in the community. Trees moved off the table and on to the floor. They were laden with all manner of decorations; the more, the merrier!
With the advent of electricity came the community tree. These are now an accepted part of Christmas in many urban areas worldwide. Every year since 1947, the Norwegian people gift a Norwegian Spruce to the people of London in gratitude for Britain’s support of Norway in the Second World War. This tree, over sixty feet high and at least fifty years old, is erected in Trafalgar Square and is a focal point for Christmas festivities in the city.

Artificial trees are now widely available, in many colours; some pre-lit, whilst others play carols or even revolve! Tinsel is now made of aluminium and decorations are largely mass produced. Some would say that this commercialisation of the Christmas tree has undermined its symbolism and importance. Others would argue that it is a testament to its enduring popularity. What is certainly true is that the Christmas tree is an established part of the Christmas celebrations, bringing good cheer and happiness to a festive season.

I wish everyone a very happy, peaceful Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Bibliography:
http://www.london.gov.uk/trafalgarsquare/events/xmas.jsp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/albert_prince.shtml
http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=1284&display_order=4&mini_id=1290
http://www.merry-christmas.com/stories/histortree.htm
http://www.christmas-tree.com/where.html
http://www.christmasarchives.com/trees.html

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