by Liz Hamill

© Ligonography | Dreamstime.com

December 2011—There’s no 11th commandment saying “Thou shalt stick a precariously-balanced live tree in your living room for three weeks in December. This tree shall be covered with glass balls and things your kids made out of Popsicle sticks and glitter when they were in second grade. Thy cats and dogs and small children shall love to play with and eat these ornaments.”

But Douglas fir trees didn’t thrive in the sands of the Middle East 2,000 years ago. And there’s actually a prohibition against the “heathen” practice of using trees in Winter Solstice celebrations in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. So how did the Christmas tree become part of the celebration of the birth of Jesus?

If you’re a Californian who strings twinkle-lights in palm trees, you are being traditional no matter what your neighbors say. The ancient Egyptians displayed palm fronds during the winter holiday celebrations to symbolize the triumph of life over death.

Romans and Britons used evergreen boughs in their homes to keep evil spirits out, usually during the Winter Solstice. Evergreen plants symbolized the continuation of life, and were brought indoors to remind people that life goes on, even during the blizzards of winter.

The Christian Church got in on the evergreen racket during the Middle Ages. Saint Boniface made the initial connection between Christianity and fir trees with a miracle in about 700 A.D. He ran across a group of pagans worshipping an oak tree, which pissed him off, so he chopped down the oak tree. To his — and no doubt the pagans’ — surprise, a fir tree sprang up in its place. Oddly, the Church took this to be a sign of the death of paganism and the rise of Christianity.

Another legend claims that it was the Protestants who invented the Christmas tree in early 16th century in Germany. In this story, Martin Luther was so overwhelmed by the stars twinkling in the branches of the forest near his home that he cut down an evergreen tree and brought it indoors. He then decorated it with lit candles so his family could share his wonder.

Christmas trees have been decorated with all sorts of ornaments through the centuries. “Paradise trees” were decorated with apples and communion wafers, to symbolize man’s fall from grace and the hope of the Resurrection. Decorations evolved to include paper roses, dolls, strings of popcorn and cranberries, candy, presents and hand-blown glass balls. And people perched lit candles in metal holders all over the branches of green — but rapidly drying out — trees inside their homes and churches. Yule logs and Christmas candles were lit at dusk on Christmas Eve, and burned through the night to keep bad luck away. If a shadow cast in the flickering firelight seemed to have no head, that person was fated to die within the next year.

Christmas trees came to the United States with German settlers and soldiers in the 1700s. The first retail Christmas tree lot appeared in New York City in 1851. Soon after, it became fashionable for communities to erect huge Christmas trees in public areas. President Calvin Coolidge presided over the lighting of the first National Christmas Tree on the grounds of the White House in 1923. The tree was a 48-foot-tall balsam fir hauled in from Vermont for the occasion. It was lit with 2,500 red, white and green light bulbs.

Americans went through a regrettable phase after World War II — we believed that anything nature made, man could make better. And so the fake Christmas tree was born. Americans bought aluminum trees by the thousands, and casually threw away all those old-fashioned German glass ornaments inherited from their grandparents. Instead they decorated their tacky fake trees with fake plastic icicles, plastic Santas and reindeer, shredded-tinfoil garlands, and spray-on “snow.”

Mercifully, the fake trees craze died down. Live trees and handcrafted glass ornaments are back in style — Christmas tree farms in Half Moon Bay draw families from all across the Bay Area during December.

The kid in all of us thinks that the best part of the whole Christmas tree concept isn’t the lights and ornaments on it, it’s the presents under it. The tradition of giving gifts at the Winter Solstice was part of ancient Roman culture. In Christendom, stockings hung by the fireplace come from a story about Saint Nicholas. Apparently, he felt sorry for three poor sisters, and threw three coins down their chimney. Each coin slid into a stocking that had been set on the hearth to dry. We all hang up our stockings hoping for that same good fortune. A later tradition has St. Nick bringing candy and toys to good little children and switches and lumps of coal to the naughty ones. Today, even naughty children in the United States have nothing to fear — parents spend an average of $400 per child for Christmas presents to stash under the tree.

Whether you cut your own tree at Santa’s Tree Farm or Lemos Farm, or you set up the same artificial tree you’ve had for a decade, take a moment to enjoy the fact that you’re honoring centuries of tradition as you trim your tree this year.

On the Web:

www.religioustolerance.org/xmas_tree.htm

www.christmas-tree.com/where.html

www.orlutheran.com/html/chrtree.html

www.nps.gov/whho/historyculture/1923-national-christmas-tree.htm