All about evergreen Christmas tradition
Thank you, lovely Bulletin readers, you really are embracing the spirit of Christmas! My email has been ‘pinging’ a lot in the past week as you’ve sent me questions about hanging fruit on trees like the mango in a certain advertising campaign (yes, they really did and then later blown glass baubles shaped like fruit), gingerbread, tinsel and trees! I’ve responded to everyone now, but as the overwhelming majority (fifty-three emails) were about trees, let’s go with them today!
A few people were very cross about the use of pagan trees in this, one of the two most holy of Christian festivals. As I’ve said before, the early Christians were pragmatists and if new members could find some points of similarity in beliefs, then they may be more ready to embrace a new belief set. In fact, Christianity would embrace the evergreen Christmas pine and make it their own, but more about that soon. Evergreen trees were favoured by the pagans long before Christianity. The pagans marvelled at these trees that despite cold Winters and deep snow, maintained their green foliage. The pagans believed that these trees were a magic gift of their gods as a sign that Winter would end and golden days of sunshine return. At the feast of Winter solstice, held on the shortest day of the northern hemisphere around December 20-24, the pagans would decorate evergreens to thank them for the life force bestowed upon them.
Back in the 5th century, St Patrick had taught the people of Ireland about the Holy Trinity using the aid of a common, local, three leafed shamrock. When St Boniface, an English Benedictine monk, travelled as a missionary to Germany in the 8th century, there were no shamrocks, but there were tall evergreen fir trees as far as the eye could see. St Boniface used this triangular shaped tree to teach the people of Thuringia about the Holy Trinity referencing the three sides. Once his mission there was complete, he travelled throughout the Frankish Empire, now Germany, uniting the Christian church under the Church of Rome and all the while using the pine tree and its two-dimensional depiction as a triangle to bring the Holy Trinity into the lives of the Franks.
By the 12th century many German churches hung upside down fir trees from the beams of their vaulted ceilings. It must have been an amazing, if a little scary, sight! The Germans eventually turned the fir tree the right way up and brought it into their homes during the 1500’s and decorated it with pure silver foil strips, gingerbread shapes hung from ribbon (white for purity or red for knowledge) and small handmade wooden and straw ornaments.
Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer, would add small candles to the tree decoration after walking home from his church one Advent evening and seeing the light of the stars twinkle through the pine needles on the tall fir trees.
When Great Britain ran out of Protestant rulers and sent for the German Protestant Hanoverian Georges (1714-1830) to rule, they brought the tradition of Christmas trees with them. The people of Great Britain were unimpressed and did not want to adopt their practices. This would all change though when their muchloved Victoria married the German Prince Albert (of the German duchy of Saxe-coburg and Gotha) on February 10th, 1840. When Victoria placed a decorated tree in their home at Buckingham Palace in 1846, the people of England were quick to copy. By the 1850’s the German town of Lauscha was busy making garlands of glass beads, much like necklaces, which would decorate trees across Great Britain. Twenty years later, nationalism had invaded Christmas and the ‘rauschgoldengel’ (gold tinselled angel) common atop German trees or the star had been replaced by the country’s flag! Other countries copied.
By the 19th century, the Christmas tree had spread with British immigrants to North America, Canada and Australia. It was considered quite a status symbol to have a tree!
Towards the end of the 19th century the German fir was in trouble as families simply chopped off the top for a convenient household size. This permanently stunted the growth of the tree. So, the first ‘fake trees’ were born in the 1880’s and they were made of goose feathers to mimic the soft snow on an outdoor tree. In perhaps the most curious twist of the Christmas tree story, the Addis brush company (they may still have made your washing up brush) of the USA, turned its toilet brush making machines over to manufacturing fake green boughs to be made into Christmas trees in the early 20th century. These sturdy trees could hold many decorations and could be stored for use again next year.
During the wars, smaller trees were preferred as wood was required for the war effort and families in Britain were concerned that precious heirloom ornaments might be damaged in air raids, so they were stored away carefully and homemade ornaments used. The 1960’s saw the advent of silver trees or even some revolving trees with coloured lights beneath while the turn of the century brought fibre optic trees with ‘built in’ lights. This year I note a number of illuminated ‘Christmas sticks’, just branches void of foliage. There are even trees to pack away that cost much more than my first car! Who knows what trend will follow? Have you a word or phrase that’s troubling you? Is there an event or topic about which you’d like information? Would you like assistance with a question you can’t shake? Please contact me on suebelinda.mee han@outlo ok.com.au