The Christmas Tree or Tannenbaum
During the Christmas season, families bring home small evergreen trees and decorate them with ornaments and lights. Presents are placed under the tree, and, on Christmas, the families gather around the tree to open presents. The origins of the Christmas tree tradition are another example of the intermingling of pagan traditions with religious holidays.
One of the earliest references to the fir tree as a symbol of Christmas involves the British monk and missionary St. Boniface (born Winfrid in A.D. 680). Boniface was preaching a sermon on the Nativity to a tribe of Germanic Druids outside the town of Geismar. To convince the idolaters that the oak tree was not sacred and inviolable, the “Apostle of Germany” felled one on the spot. Toppling, it crushed every shrub in its path except for a small fir sapling. Legend has it that Boniface, attempting to win converts, hailed the fir tree’s survival as a miracle, concluding, “Let this be called the tree of the Christ Child.” Subsequently, Germans celebrated Christmas by planting fir saplings.
By the sixteenth century, Germans decorated fir trees to celebrate Christmas with ornaments made of colored paper, apples, wafers, gilt and sugar. It is believed that Martin Luther, the sixteenth-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree to imitate the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. Many German families still use real candles in special holders, clipped onto carefully chosen branches, to illuminate their trees.
By the 1700s, the “Christbaum,” or “Christ tree,” was a firmly established tradition. From Germany the custom spread to other parts of Western Europe. It was popularized in England during the 19th century by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s German consort.
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