WHY DO WE HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE ?

"small" pictures are here

a German Christmas tree with real candles

Many people all over the world have a Christmas tree and decorate it with love and phantasy. And why ? Nobody really cares about it, because it had always existed.

But this is not quite true. The origin of a decorated tree came probably from Germanic tribes who decorated an "evergreen" tree with food to be thankful for a good year. The Romans did it too, the first trace of such a tree was found in a mosaic picture in Tunesia.

It is not proved that our modern custom comes directly from pagan tradition. But it can be traced to 16th century in Germany. It was mentioned for the first time in 1570 by a Bremen guild chronicle and described as a small fir decorated with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers.

By the early 18th century, the custom had become common in towns of the upper Rhineland, but it had not yet spread to rural areas. The Christmas tree remained confined to the upper Rhineland for a relatively long time. It was regarded as a Protestant custom by the Catholic majority and was spread only by Prussian officials in 1815.

In the early 19th century, the custom became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far as Russia. In France, the first Christmas tree was introduced only in 1840.

In Britain, the Christmas tree was introduced by King George III's German wife Charlotte but did not spread much beyond the royal family. It really started to become popular with Queen Victoria . After her marriage to her German cousin, Prince Albert, the custom became even more widespread. The generous Prince Albert also presented large numbers of trees to schools and army barracks at Christmas. Images of the royal family with their Christmas tree were illustrated in English magazines, and copied by American magazines at Christmas 1850. It helped popularise the Christmas tree amongst the anglophile American upper class .

Traditionally, Christmas trees were not brought in and decorated until Christmas Eve (24 December), and then removed the day after twelfth night (i.e., 6 January); to have a tree up before or after these dates was even considered bad luck. But now people have to decorate their Christmas trees a week or two before, as many of them are working and have no time to do everything on the 24th.