Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - A History of Christmas Trees

Starting point is 00:00:00 Perhaps the preeminent symbol of Christmas is the Christmas tree. Christmas trees aren't just a symbol of Christmas. The act of setting up a tree is an event, and the adornment of a tree often uses ornaments that have been passed down for generations. But why is cutting down an evergreen tree and draping it with doodads a Christmas tradition to begin with? Learn more about the history of Christmas trees and how they came to represent the Christmas season on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok.

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Starting point is 00:01:18 a very long time. We can trace its roots, pun intended, back to well before the advent of Christmas. In particular, the pre-Christian pagan period in northern Europe. Ancient peoples who lived in regions with harsh, dark winters, held evergreen plants in special regard. While deciduous trees lost their leaves and appeared to die during the winter months, evergreens remained vibrant in green, seeming to possess an eternal life force. The ancient Germans, Romans, Romans, Romans, and Celts all incorporated evergreen boughs into their winter celebrations. Romans decorated their homes with evergreen branches during Saturnalia, the festival honoring Saturn. The druids used evergreens to decorate their homes and temples during the winter

Starting point is 00:02:02 solstice as symbols of everlasting life. Germanic peoples held particular reverence for evergreen trees during winter festivals. They believe that evergreens had special protective powers that could ward off witches, ghosts, and evil spirits. Some historians believe that Germanic tribes may have decorated trees with candles during winter celebrations, though solid documentation of this practice is difficult to find from this period. The transition from these pagan practices to a specifically Christian tradition is murky and debated amongst historians. One popular legend attributes the Christmas tree to St. Boniface, an 8th-century English monk who worked to convert Germanic tribes to Christianity. According to the story,

Starting point is 00:02:45 Boniface came upon a group of pagans worshipping an oak tree, and to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity, cut it down. A fir tree supposedly grew from the roots of the fallen oak tree, and Boniface declared this a miracle and a symbol of Christianity, with its triangular shape representing the Holy Trinity. The more documented history of the Christmas tree, as we know it, begins in medieval and Renaissance Germany. By the 15th and 16th centuries, devout Christians in Germany

Starting point is 00:03:12 were bringing evergreen trees into their homes. The word Tannenbaum, which you might have heard from the Christmas carol O Tannenbaum, literally just means fir tree in German, but it's often associated with Christmas trees. Early records are sparse, but a document from 1419 mentions a tree decorated with apples, wafers, gingerbread, and tinsle set up in the city of Freiburg by the town's Guild of Bakers. The tree remained there until New Year's Day when the children were allowed to take the edible decorations. Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, is sometimes credited with adding lighted candles to Christmas trees, although this attribution is likely apocryphal. The story goes that while walking through a forest

Starting point is 00:03:55 one winter evening, Luther was struck by the beauty of starlight shining through the branches of evergreen trees. To recreate this scene for his family, he supposedly brought a tree indoors and decorated it with lit candles. Whether or not this specific story is true, the practice of decorating trees with candles did become common in Germany during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Christmas tree tradition remained largely confined to German-speaking regions for several hundred years. It was viewed with suspicion in other parts of Europe, particularly England, where Puritans considered such decorations to be pagan practices. The Puritans who settled in New England carried the suspicion with them, and Christmas trees were actually banned in Boston

Starting point is 00:04:37 in the early colonial period. The transformation of the Christmas tree, into a widespread European and eventually global tradition began in earnest in the 19th century. German immigrants brought the tradition to other countries, but it gained mainstream acceptance largely through royal endorsement. Queen Victoria of Britain married German Prince Albert of Saxe-Goburg and Gotha in 1840, and Albert brought his beloved Christmas tree tradition to Windsor Castle. In 1848, the Illustrated London News published a drawing of the royal family

Starting point is 00:05:10 gathered around their decorated Christmas tree. This image was widely reproduced and helped make Christmas trees fashionable among the British upper class. When the image was published in American magazines, the royal figures were often removed to make it more palatable to American sensibilities, but the effect was the same. Christmas trees became associated with proper Victorian households and family values. In the United States, German settlers had been setting up Christmas trees since the colonial period, particularly in Pennsylvania. However, the practice didn't become widespread until the mid-19th century as well. As German immigration increased, and Victoria and Albert's influence spread across the Atlantic, American families of all backgrounds

Starting point is 00:05:51 began adopting the tradition. By the 1870s and 1880s, Christmas trees were becoming common in American homes, and the commercial Christmas tree industry was just starting to develop. The commercialization of Christmas trees accelerated rapidly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. What had once been a family activity, of going into the forest to cut a tree, increasingly became a matter of purchasing one from a merchant. The first commercial Christmas tree lot in the United States is often credited to Mark Carr, who in 1851 hauled two oxled loads of trees from the Catskill Mountains to New York City and sold them on the street. The practice quickly caught on, and by the 1900s, Christmas tree farms were

Starting point is 00:06:34 being established to meet a growing demand. Decorations also became increasingly commercialized. German craftsmen had been producing glass ornaments since the 1860s, with the town of Laosha, becoming particularly famous for its glass ball ornaments. F.W. Woolworth discovered these ornaments during a trip to Germany and began importing them to the United States in the 1880s, selling millions of dollars worth over the following decades. Electric Christmas lights, invented by Thomas Edison's associate Edward Johnson in 1882, began to replace dangerous candles, although they didn't become widely affordable until the 1920s and 1930s. The 20th century saw the Christmas tree become firmly established as both a

Starting point is 00:07:16 domestic and public symbol. The tradition of erecting large public Christmas trees in town squares and prominent locations spread across the Western world. The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York City, first erected in 1831, became one of the most famous public Christmas trees in the world. Communities large and small adopted the practice of holding tree lighting ceremonies that brought people together during the holiday season. Different countries and cultures adapted the Christmas tree tradition to their own context. In some predominantly Catholic countries, Christmas trees were initially viewed with suspicion as Protestant innovations, but they eventually gained acceptance. The tradition spread beyond Christian countries as well, becoming a secular symbol of the

Starting point is 00:07:58 winter holiday season in many places. In Japan, for instance, Christmas trees and decorations became popular despite Christianity being a minority religion. It was just seen as part of the broader Western commercial culture. Many communities develop Christmas tree recycling programs, turning old trees into mulch. The debate continues today with proponents of real trees arguing that they're renewable and biodegradable, while advocates for artificial trees point to their reusability over many years.

Starting point is 00:08:26 Where I live, there's a tradition of using old Christmas trees to mark the ice roads across frozen lakes. But as I mentioned, not all Christmas trees are real. Artificial trees originated in Germany in the 19th century, appearing for practical and environmental reasons rather than as a decorative innovation. As the Christmas tree traditions spread, the forests around German cities were strained by the seasonal demand, and conservation concerns eventually led authorities to discourage the cutting of young fir trees.

Starting point is 00:08:58 In response, German craftsmen created substitutes that preserved the look of an evergreen without removing a tree from the forest. The earliest versions were made from goose feathers dyed green and attached to wire branches, which were then wrapped around a central wooden dowel to form a cone-shaped tree. These feather trees were often designed with widely spaced branches to better hold candles and ornaments. By the early 20th century, artificial trees were spreading throughout Europe and North America, helped by catalog companies and department stores. The innovation of new materials accelerated their adoption.

Starting point is 00:09:33 In the 1930s and 40s, factories that made bottle brushes for household cleaning adopted their production lines to create brush trees, which used bristle-died fabrics to mimic pine needles. These trees offered a more realistic shape and density than feather trees and required very little maintenance. After World War II, the growth of the plastics industry and consumer culture led to mass-produced PVC trees, which were lightweight, reusable, and increasingly lifelike. In the 1950s and 60s, aluminum Christmas trees became a brief stylistic trend in the United States,

Starting point is 00:10:08 reflecting mid-century design and a fascination with space-age aesthetics. I'll close by covering the tree that might compete with the Rockefeller Center tree for the most famous in the world. The White House Christmas tree. The custom began informally in the 19th century when President Benjamin Harrison introduced the first documented indoor Christmas tree to the White House in 1880. That tree placed in the family living quarters rather than a public space was decorated with candles, toys, and gifts for Harrison's grandchildren. Other presidents followed suit sporadically. Grover Cleveland, who had young children during his second administration,

Starting point is 00:10:46 displayed trees in the 1890s, and Theodore Roosevelt's sons famously smuggled a tree into the White House in 1902 after Roosevelt had discouraged the practice due to conservation concerns. For the first several decades, there was no uniform tradition. trees might appear or not, depending on the president's religious preferences, personal tastes, or family situation. By the early 20th century, Christmas celebrations in the White House were becoming more public. The key turning point came in 1923 when President Calvin Coolidge presided over the first national Christmas tree lighting on the White House lawn. This outdoor tree was not technically the White House Christmas tree, but it marked the first time the presidency tied the Christmas holiday to a national rich tree.

Starting point is 00:11:31 A crowd gathered as Coolidge threw the switch on a 64-foot balsam fur donated by the state of Vermont. The event established an annual tradition of public tree lighting that continues today and is distinct from, but connected to, the indoor tree inside the White House. During the 1930s and 40s, Franklin Roosevelt made the holiday an important part of the White House Social Calendar, decorating trees while also using Christmas addresses to rally morale during the Great Depression in World War II. The modern White House Christmas tree tradition, in the sense of a central ceremonial tree inside the building, took shape during the presidency of Harry Truman and then solidified under John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy. The Kennedys introduced theme decorations in 1961, inaugurating the idea that each year's tree would have a distinctive, artistic, or cultural theme. Jacqueline Kennedy's first theme used the tree decorations inspired by Chikovsky's The Nutcracker.

Starting point is 00:12:29 The blue room in the White House became the standard location for the main tree, chosen for its height and symmetry, and a towering fir tree is now installed there each year after the ceiling chandelier is temporarily removed. For many people, Christmas trees are Christmas. When I was really little, I would sit in front of our Christmas tree fixated on the colorful lights, and on Christmas morning, all of the presents would be located under the Christmas tree. And this symbol of the holiday season is all due to ancient pagan Germans who are just trying to ward away evil spirits. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer.

Starting point is 00:13:17 As I mentioned in a previous episode, we are quickly approaching the third millennium of the podcast with episode 2001. In celebration of this milestone, I'm going to be turning the episode over to you. I've set up a tool that allows you to leave a short message that can be played on the show. Just go to Everything- Everywhere.com, and you'll see a link right at the top of the page to click on to leave your audio message. Let me know who you are, where you're from, maybe how you discovered the podcast, or if you're in the completionist club. And do try to keep it short, given the time limits of the show. I've also published the links on the Discord server, the Facebook group, and on Patreon. This episode will be recorded on December 27th, so you have to get your stuff.

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Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - A History of Christmas Trees

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