![]() ![]() Since 1701, English kings had been forbidden from becoming or marrying Catholics. Yet, the German tradition of the Christmas tree blossomed in the United States largely due to Britain’s German royal lineage. Benjamin Franklin estimated that at least one-third of Pennsylvania’s white population was German before the American Revolution. German immigration to the American colonies ensured that the practice of trees would take root in the New World. Puritan colonists in Massachusetts did the same, fining “whosoever shall be found observing Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way.” They banned it in the 1650s, with soldiers patrolling London’s streets looking for anyone daring to celebrate the day. Wikimedia Commonsīut a century later, the English Puritans frowned upon the disorderly holiday for lacking biblical legitimacy. German Protestants sought to replace ornate Nativity scenes with the simpler tree. The religious reformer Martin Luther supposedly adopted the practice and added candles. Sixteenth-century German Protestants, eager to remove the iconography and relics of the Roman Catholic Church, gave the Christmas tree a huge boost when they used it to replace Nativity scenes. In keeping with old solstice celebrations, the song praises the tree’s faithful hardiness during the dark and cold winter. There is no reference to Christmas in the carol, which Anschütz based on a much older Silesian folk love song. Although Ernst Anschütz’s well-known 1824 carol dedicated to the tree is translated into English as “O Christmas Tree,” the title of the original German tune is simply “Tannenbaum,” meaning fir tree. The continued use of evergreens, most notably the Christmas tree, is the most visible remnant of those ancient solstice celebrations. For example, the 12 days of Christmas commemorated in the popular carol actually originated in ancient Germanic Yule celebrations. 25 was ostensibly a Christian holiday, many Europeans simply carried over traditions from winter solstice celebrations, which were notoriously raucous affairs. ![]() The date was not fixed on liturgical calendars until centuries after Jesus’ birth, and the English word Christmas – an abbreviation of “Christ’s Mass” – would not appear until over 1,000 years after the original event. Christmas slowly emergesĬhristmas came much later. Whether as palm branches gathered in Egypt in the celebration of Ra or wreaths for the Roman feast of Saturnalia, evergreens have long served as symbols of the perseverance of life during the bleakness of winter, and the promise of the Sun’s return. The favored décor for ancient winter solstices? Evergreen plants. The Persian Shab-e Yalda, Dongzhi in China and the North American Hopi Soyal all independently mark the occasion. The winter solstice, when the sky is its darkest, has been a notable day of celebration in agrarian societies throughout human history. The solstices, when the Sun is at its highest and lowest points in the sky, were major events. A symbol of life in a time of darknessĪlmost all agrarian societies independently venerated the Sun in their pantheon of gods at one time or another – there was the Sol of the Norse, the Aztec Huitzilopochtli, the Greek Helios. To give up the tree would be to give up a ritual that predates Christmas itself. Then my inner historian scolds me – I have to remind myself that I’m taking part in one of the world’s oldest religious traditions. Strapping a fir tree to the hood of my car and worrying about the strength of the twine, I sometimes wonder if I should just buy an artificial tree and do away with all the hassle. Why, every Christmas, do so many people endure the mess of dried pine needles, the risk of a fire hazard and impossibly tangled strings of lights? ![]()
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