I can’t let a December go by without a blog about Christmas trees. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a nut for beautifully decorated trees. At one time I put up four or five in my home, but since our downsize, I’ve taken to enjoying other people’s trees all the more. In fact I hold the Annual Great Christmas Tree Tour every year from Thanksgiving to Christmas. If you haven’t already sent me a photo of your tree, please don’t wait any longer! Here’s my email: SaintJohn@aol.com
It’s difficult to get good photos of Christmas trees without fancy lenses, but if you know how to slow down the shutter speed, you can do a pretty good job.
Every year since our children were small, we’ve spent an evening driving around and enjoying the lights. The houses are so lovely. Some people are extreme in their decorating, but my favorite part is still seeing that lighted tree in the front window. Over the holidays I usually have a chance to see several of our friends’ homes and trees, and I never get tired of the experience.
Late in the Middle Ages, Germans and Scandinavians placed evergreen trees inside their homes or just outside their doors to show their hope in the forthcoming spring. Records have it that the first Christmas tree can be traced to France in 1521, though the Germans are most often credited with its origin. (OTannenbaum) The first trees were decorated with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers for the pleasure of the wealthy people’s children.
George Washington didn’t have a Christmas tree. Many colonial religions banned celebrations, claiming that they were tied to pagan traditions. The New England Puritans passed a law that punished anyone who observed the holiday with a five-shilling fine. The Quakers treated Christmas Day as any other day of the year. The Presbyterians didn’t have formal services until they noticed that their members were heading to the English church to attend theirs! This sparked the Presbyterian Church to start their own. It was the Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Lutherans who introduced Christmas celebrations to colonial America. December 25th actually began a season of festivities that lasted until January 6th–the Twelve days of Christmas. January 6th was called Twelfth Day, and colonists found it was the perfect occasion for balls, parties and other festivals.
Legend has it that one crisp Christmas Eve around 1500, Martin Luther was walking through snow-covered woods and was struck by the beauty of a group of evergreens. Their branches, dusted with snow, shimmered in the moonlight. When he got home, he set up a little fir tree indoors so he could share this story with his children. He decorated it with candles, which he lighted in honor of Christ’s birth.
In the early 19th century, decorating a tree became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far as Russia. Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg introduced the Christmas tree to Vienna in 1816, and the custom spread across Austria.
In her journal for Christmas Eve 1832, the delighted 13-year-old princess who later became England’s Queen Victoria wrote, “After dinner…we then went into the drawing-room near the dining room…There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments, all the presents being placed round the trees.” A young Victoria often visited Germany and most likely picked up the customs she enjoyed. A woodcut of the royal family with their Christmas tree at Osborne House, initially published in the Illustrated London News of December 1848, was copied in the United States at Christmas in 1850. Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable–not only in Britain, but with the fashion-conscious east coast American society.
A German immigrant living in Ohio was the first to decorate a tree with candy canes. In 1847, Imgard cut a blue spruce tree from a woods outside town, had the Wooster village tinsmith construct a star, and placed the tree in his house, decorating it with paper ornaments and candy canes. The canes were all white with no red stripes.
Ornaments were made by hand during those early years. Young ladies spent hours quilting snowflakes and stars, sewing little pouches for secret gifts and paper baskets with sugared almonds in them. Popcorn and cranberries were strung on thread and draped as garland. Tin was pierced to create lights and lanterns to hold candles, which glowed through the holes. People hunted the general stores for old magazines with pictures, rolls of cotton wool and tinsel, which was occasionally sent from Germany or brought in from the eastern states. Small toys were placed on the branches. Most of the trees at this time were small and sat on a tabletop. They weren’t the six and seven foot trees we think of today when we think of Christmas trees.
Some believe the Christmas tree tradition most likely came to the United States with Hessian troops during the American Revolution, or with German immigrants to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Most resources site Germans as some of the first to decorate Christmas trees. But the custom spread slowly. The Puritans banned Christmas in New England. Even as late as 1851, a Cleveland minister nearly lost his job because he allowed a tree in his church.
The Christmas tree market was born in 1851 when a Catskill farmer by the name of Mark Carr hauled two ox sleds of evergreens into New York City and sold them all. By 1900 one in five American families had a Christmas tree, and twenty years later the custom was nearly universal.
In 1880 England, Christmas trees became a glorious hotchpotch of everything one could cram on and grew to floor-standing trees. They were still a status symbol, the more affluent the family, the larger the tree.
The High Victorian of the 1890’s was a child’s joy to behold! It stood as tall as the room, and was crammed with glitter and tinsel and toys galore. Even the middle classes managed to over decorate their trees. It was a case of anything goes. Everything that could possibly go on a tree went onto it. Kind of like my philosophy: More is more.
The Christmas tree market was born in 1851 when Catskill farmer Mark Carr hauled two ox sleds of evergreens into New York City and sold them all. By 1900, one in five American families had a Christmas tree, and 20 years later, the custom was nearly universal.
Christmas tree farms sprang up during the depression. Nurserymen couldn’t sell their evergreens for landscaping, so they cut them for Christmas trees. Cultivated trees were preferred because they have a more symmetrical shape then wild ones. A F.W. Woolworth brought the glass ornament tradition from Germany to the United States in 1890. I love vintage ornaments, how about you?
If you don’t have a copy of Snowflakes and Stetsons yet, order a copy so you can read it sitting by the tree, sipping hot cocoa.
Do you have memories of Christmas trees from your youth? Remember tinsel trees, those aluminum lovelies with the turnwheel light that made it change colors? My grandma had one of those. I inherited a few of her decorations: A set of cardboard houses crusted with glitter that have tissue paper windows and a set of Santa and reindeer that were among the first products made from plastic.
Is your tree up yet? Send me a photo!
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Hi Cheryl,
I love Christmas trees (and Margaret’s lucky horseshoe tree is so cute). When I was growing up, we always decorated the Christmas tree on my birthday and my parents still do. I’d like to think it’s in tribute to my birth, but it’s really just tradition now. :o)
We had two trees for many years. The one upstairs was the “formal tree” red glass bulbs, silver garland and everything just so. Then downstairs we had the toy tree with everything from stuffed animals to toy train sections, matchbox cars and a chain link garland made from strips of construction paper. Some of the best memories are of decorating those trees as a family.
And every year we still all pile in the car and drive around to see the Christmas lights in my hometown. It’s amazing some of the displays neighbors put up in their yards.
–Kirsten
Cheryl these are some great Christmas Trees, as soon as I have mine finished I will send you a picture. My nices and nephews will be here on the 17th to finish it off. It is an annual event I have, the Tree Trimming Party and now it is combined with Sparkle in the Park.
I don’t have a real tree, but mine looks just as good as a real one… I have ordements still from my first christmas tree I decorated in my own place after i moved out on my own, over 29 years ago. And I buy a new decoration each year. So that is a lot of decorations on the tree..
Kirsten, I love that you had a perfect tree and a fun tree. That’s the way to do it!
Kathleen, I will watch for your photos! Thanks.
Just reading this makes me feel Christmas-y Cheryl. Love the smell of a real tree, but since I live alone and would have to haul one on my small car and wrestle it into the house, I have a fake one. I decorate it with butterflies to remind me of my trip to the Amazon a few years ago. With lights and gold balls, it works.
The first year I put up my butterfly tree, my cats attacked it and pulled it over. But they’re used to it now.
Happy holidays, everyone.
I’m with you, Cheryl. I love trees. I went from three down to one and am back up to three again. Nothing special about any of them except that they’re just…special.
Merry Christmas!
Your butterfly tree must be one of a kind, Elizabeth.
Liz – send me pics!
Have you ever sent me a pic, Elizabeth? If you have, I probably still have it.
Wanna hear something sad? We’re going to be away from home this Christmas and I don’t think I’ll put up a tree at all. Maybe not even get my decorations out.
No one comes to my house.
My husband finds the decorations annoying.
I might just skip the whole decorating thing. If I do decorate, it’ll be JUST for me.
Don’t have photos, Cheryl. I plan to invest in a digital camera after Christmas, so I can send you one for next year. Love your tree photo collection.
Mary, you can get your fix at the tree tour this year! just stop by and enjoy the trees.
Okay, Elizabeth. There are already great sales on cameras. I’m thinking about a small one for my purse.
I always enjoy the Christmas trees at your blog Cheryl. Thanks for the Christmas tree history and information. I decorated our little artificial tree last evening with a simple country motif.
Wish I was there, Lori!
Hi Cheryl! Have you seen the upside down trees?
The point is at the bottom, stuck in a holder, and the top is flat! I can’t decide whether I like them or not. I’ve seen them at the floral dept. at HyVee!
Merry Christmas!!!
Hi Beverly! Yes, the first one I ever saw was at a Christmas shop in the Amana Colonies. I was enthralled. I think I need one of those right now — with a two year old in the house. LOL
Great to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by!
I love Christmas and I especially love trees! I loved it when our kids were home and decorating the tree was one of our favorite traditions. I miss those days. I just isn’t the same with my husband and I but we still enjoy doing it together! I loved reading Snowflakes & Stetsons! I read it before the season began to get in the spirit of the holidays!
Cheryl, loved your post and the history of the Christmas tree. Thanks for sharing. Gives me a lot to think about. Hugs and thanks again, Phyliss
u so much, Valri!! Glad the stories helped you get into the spirit of Christmas.
Thanks, Phyliss!
Thanks for a wonderfully informative post on some Christmas traditions. I really like the picture of Margaret Brownley’s horseshoe tree. I know a few people who would really like one. I’ll have to see if my daughter has any shoes left and then get my son to make one.
My grandparents also had a silver tree with the wheel to change the color. I wonder where it ended up? I do have some of her and my aunt’s old ornaments
We went into a neighbors woods (with permission of course) and cut our tree when I was a kid. We got a Scotch Pine most years. It had long needles so wasn’t the best for putting lots of decorations on, but it looked and smelled great. Until recently, we had a real tree every year. When our children were old enough, we went out and cut our own tree. Sometimes we went to a tree farm and sometimes to friends property. When our son was in Boy Scouts, their troop had (still does) a tree lot. We helped them cut the tree, set the lot up, and sell them. Of course, we bought our tree there.
In recent years, we haven’t managed to do much decorating and sometimes haven’t even managed to get a tree up. I did mention on Phyliss Miranda’s post about our last tree (A few years ago we were at a resort in the NC mountains for Christmas. I purchased a 2 foot artificial tree at the craft store and a spool of red ribbon. We all (our daughter, her husband, and our grandson were with us) went for a walk in the woods and collected small cones, moss, feathers, a snail shell and berries & seed pods for our little tree. I had a few little feather birds to add and it was really a delightful tree.) This year we will be gone until Christmas Eve. May not get a tree up. I do have a one foot tree that is decorated with gingham bows, wax stars, and has old style toys under it. May dig that out to take with us and put it in our breakfast nook when we get back.
SNOWFLAKES AND STETSONS is on my list to get. Hopefully things will calm down enough to get it.
Hi Patricia,
There are so many memories stemming from Christmas trees and holidays of our childhoods and those when our children were small. Thanks for sharing yours.
I loved the image of your bird and feather tree!
Christmas trees are such a wonderful tradition. I have had many different trees. One year we had a tree all decorated in gold. Every family member and special friends all had a gold engraved ornament hanging on our tree. My children are partial to our special ornament tree where all of the ornaments that they have recieved over the years were hung but as they left home their ornaments went with them.
I gave my kids all their special ornaments too, Connie. But I’ve added more. lol