Christmas Presents, Holiday Gifts, Christmas Decorations, Xmas Candles, Christmas Ornaments
Information on the Origin of Christmas and Christmas Trees.

Stories about First Christmas trees

One story tells that when Christianity first came to Northern Europe, three virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity were sent from Heaven to find a tree that was as high as hope; as great as love; as sweet as charity; and one that had the sign of the cross on every bough. Their search ended in the forests of the North where they found the Fir. Lighted from the radiance of the stars, it was the first Christmas tree.

Another typical tale tells about a woodcutter who helps a small hungry child. The next morning, the child appears to the woodcutter and his wife, and is none other than the Christ Child. The child breaks a branch from a fir tree and tells the couple that it will be a tree that, at Christmas time, will bear fruit. As foretold, the tree is laden with apples of gold and nuts of silver.

Various Conifers - such as spruce, balsam, eastern hemlock and the scotch pine are used as Christmas trees but the scotch pine has surpassed the Douglas Fir as the nations most popular Christmas tree. But in the Holy Land conifers are mostly small and insignificant and forests few apart from Lebanon with its magnificent cedars (Psalm 104:16). Even in ancient times forested areas were small. How did the evergreen tree come to become associated with Christmas? Is it an appropriate symbol in Christian homes? Is it rooted in paganism or Christian symbolism? Is there a significance to it's decorations?

 

Boniface and Thor's Oak

Legend has it that the missionary to the Germans, St. Boniface, in order to stop sacrifices at their sacred Donar Oak near Geismar, chopped the tree down in 725 A.D. Supposedly with one mighty blow, Saint Boniface felled the massive oak and as the tree split, a beautiful young fir tree sprang from its center. Saint Boniface told the people that this lovely evergreen, with its branches pointing to heaven, was indeed a holy tree, the tree of the Christ Child, a symbol of His promise of eternal life. He instructed them henceforth to carry the evergreen from the wilderness into their homes and to surround it with gifts, symbols of love and kindness.
 

The Paradise Tree

From the eleventh Century, each December 24th in Germany, religious plays called "Mystery / Miracle Plays" were performed to teach the Christmas stories of the Bible.  The popular Paradise Play depicted the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, their sin and banishment from Eden.  An evergreen tree was the logical choice for a lush garden tree on this winter festival, and it was decorated with apples symbolizing the forbidden fruit. (this is how red and green became the colors of Christmas and Christmas "Eve" came to be)   It ended with the promise of the coming Savior and his incarnation, so gradually flat wafers symbolizing the forgiveness of sins in communion were added to the paradise tree, making it now not just the tree of knowledge but also the tree of life. This resulted in a very old European custom of decorating a fir tree in the home with apples and small white wafers representing the Holy Eucharist at Christmas time. These wafers were later replaced by little pieces of pastry cut in the shapes of stars, angels, hearts, flowers, and bells. In some areas the custom was still to hang the tree upside down.

In addition to the paradise tree, many German Christians set up a Christmas Pyramid called a Lichstock - a open wooden frame with shelves for figurines of the Nativity covered with evergreen branches and decorated with candy, pastry, candles, and a star. The star of course was the star of Bethlehem, the candles represented the light of Christ coming into the world, the evergreens were the symbol of eternal life, and the candy, fruits, and pastries, the goodness of our life in Christ, the fruits of the spirit, etc. By the seventeenth century the Lichstock and the "Paradise Tree" became merged into the modern Christmas tree.
 

The Christmas Market Trees

By the early 1600's many German towns were celebrating Christmas with elaborately decorated trees. Christmas markets were set up to provide everything from gifts, food and more practical things such as a knife grinder to sharpen the knife to carve the Christmas Goose! Gingerbreads and wax ornaments bought as souvenirs were taken home to hang on Christmas Trees. A visitor to Strasbourg in 1601 records a tree decorated with "wafers and golden sugar-twists (Barleysugar) and paper flowers of all colours". The early trees were biblically symbolic of the Paradise Tree in the Garden of Eden. Decorations first used were paper flowers, fruits, nuts, gold foil, cakes, small gifts, and candies. So popular had this custom become that by the end of the sixteenth century many communities in Alsace limited or prohibited the use of evergreens for the holidays, in part, to protect the forests from the over-cutting of young trees. Christmas trees continued to grow in popularity during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries particularly among Lutherans and they brought the custom to England and the Americas.
 

Special Trees in the Bible

Trees are not especially significant as symbols in the Bible, though used as metaphors (Psalm 1:3, Prov 11:30; Psalm 104:16, Dan 4). Several trees, however, are key symbols: The Tree of Knowing Good and Evil in the garden of Eden symbolizes the temptation and fall of man (Genesis 3) - it was a fruit free obviously. Mankind sinned by eating its fruit, though commanded not to by God.

The Tree of Life appears at both the beginning and end of the Bible. Genesis 2:9; 3:22 and Rev 22:2. The Branch is one of the titles given to the Messiah in Isa 4:2, 11:1, Jer 23:5, Zech 3:8, 6:12. The Cross is spoken of as a tree in Gal 3:13 and 1 Peter 2:24 . It is the most significant "tree" in the Bible - a symbol representing the Savior's giving himself as the sacrifice for the sins of men.

Christmas Trees are neither significant pagan nor biblical symbols. But various Christian traditions have evolved that use the evergreen and its decorations to symbolize and teach the wonderful truths of Advent - God sending His Son to bring eternal life to a fallen world. Though abused by popular culture, Christmas Trees may still point to that true Light of the World.

This Article in Printable Brochure Form (pdf) -- The Advent Candle Tradition at Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church

• Christmas Trees 101 -- How to Select the Perfect Tree

• Ride the Christmas Tree Train

• Drink for your Christmas Tree -- Make it Last & Last

• Easy to Make Lightbulb Santa Tree Ornaments

• Easy to Make Lightbulb Snowmen Tree Ornaments

• Easy to Make Glass Snowmen Ornament

The History Of Christmas

CHRISTMAS ORIGINS

 There is more behind the secular aspect of Christmas than just profit made from gifts: Santa Claus. There is an entire history in itself of how Santa Claus came into conception. The origin of Santa Claus goes back to an altruistic bishop named Saint Nicholas who lived in Myra in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) during the fourth century. There is so much legend about this early Saint that little solid truth is known about him, so little in fact, that Pope Paul VI ordered his feast day on December 6th dropped from the liturgical calendar. However, among the many accounts told of the Saint are the two that tell of a bag of gold he allegedly threw through the window of a needy family’s house (wishing to give anonymously) and his secret gifts to three daughters of a poor man unable to pay for their dowries; had it not been for the Saint’s intervention, the girls would have been forced into prostitution.

He has become the patron saint of scholars, sailors, virgins, merchants—even thieves, but especially children, the latter to whom he was said to give gifts, arguably based on the legend of the poor man’s virgin daughters. In Germany, Holland, Rome, and other nearby countries, accounts began circulating that he rode a white horse through the sky, often accompanied by an elf named Black Peter who whipped the children who misbehaved. He had the long flowing robes of a bishop, wore a white beard, and was honored on December 6th, a holiday which eventually merged with December 25th in most countries. However, children in the The Netherlends, Belgium, and Luxembourg still leave a wooden shoe near the fireplace filled with straw for Saint Nicholas’ donkey. In the morning, the straw is gone and gifts are left in its place. In these countries, December 25th is purely a religious holiday.

The Dutch called Saint Nicholas Sinterklaas; indeed, the Dutch brought “Sinter Klaas” to America where he was to become Santa Claus. Washington Irving, writing under the pen name Deidrich Knickerbocker (see Knickerbocker Americana: Baseball and Washington Irving’s Deft Devices), churned out History of New York in 1809, making Santa Claus famous. As was his custom of borrowing liberally from the folklore of other countries, Irving describes St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, arriving on horseback every Saint Nicholas Eve, without Black Peter by his side. A few years later in 1823, Clement Clarke Moore, American minister, poet, and professor of Oriental and Greek literature at the Episcopal General Theological Seminary in New York City, wrote a fun, frivolous little poem for children entitled A Visit From Saint Nicholas, which most of us know better as ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. Moore described and named the reindeer, mentioning Santa’s wrinkles, laughs, winks, and nods, and included many other details common to our modern Santa. He even took a phrase directly from Irving’s story (“lays his finger aside his nose”), though he portrayed Santa as an elf instead of a saint.

It was to be Thomas Nast and the Coca-Cola bottling company that would turn Santa into the modern American invention. Nast was an illustrator for Harper’s magazine from the 1860s to the 1880s and he depicted Santa’s workshop at the North Pole and his list of good and bad children. Then in 1931, Coca-Cola ran a series of advertisements depicting Santa as a fully human giver of gifts, exactly as he appears today.

In 1939, Robert May, an advertising agent working for the Montgomery Ward department store, developed Rudolf, the ninth, red-nosed reindeer as a highly lucrative sales ploy. Santa Claus and his reindeer did much to advance the capitalistic interests of the commercial sector, and in-store displays featuring Santa became common place.

The Yule log came from Scandinavian mythology. The winter months were long and hard, so a huge tree was found, cut down, hauled into the house, and lit afire in honor of Thor, the Viking god of war. It was believed that Thor would bless them with prosperity during the following year in reward for this ceremony held during Yule, which is the Anglo-Saxon word for the months of December and January. The Anglo-Saxons called December “the former Yule” and January “the after Yule.” When most of the Scandinavians converted to Christianity, the burning of the Yule log became a part of the Christmas celebration, and the word Yule became synonymous with Christmas. The burning of the Yule log is still practiced today, though it is more prominent in European celebrations and has lost its Scandinavian meaning except with the handful of neopagans who seek to revive the old ways.

The Christmas tree, mistletoe, and holly have similar origins. All three are evergreens, and during the cold, hard months of winter were seen by the early Germans as being a sign of fertility, for their greenness did not go away even in winter. Poinsettias, on the other hand, with their bright red, white, or pink uppermost leaves, were a product of countries where Christmas came during the warm summer months.

As early as the 17th century, Germans had converted the Christmas tree into a Christian symbol of rebirth. Several legends try to account for the custom of the Christmas tree. According to one, an English missionary named Winfrid (also known as Boniface) who lived some 1,200 years ago, chanced upon a group of Druids encircling an oak tree. The Druids were about to sacrifice young Prince Asulf to Thor when Winfrid heroically stepped in and chopped the oak tree down. A young fir tree immediately sprouted up where the oak had stood and Winfrid told the Druids it was to be their new holy tree, a tree that would provide wood for their homes: a tree of peace, the tree of Christ. Much more likely is the legend that Martin Luther, walking through the woods late on Christmas Eve, was so moved by the starlit splendor of the fir trees, that he brought one indoors and decorated it with candles to remind his family and children of the magnificence of God’s creation.

Martin Luther or no, the Germans were probably the first to began decorating Christmas trees, perhaps even as early as the fifteenth century. They used apples and small white wafers, which eventually gave way to blown-glass ornaments, tin angels, paper chains, and other decorations. The custom firmly took hold when Prince Albert of Germany gave his wife, Queen Victoria of England, the gift of a Christmas tree in 1841. German immigrants carried this tradition with them to the New World and beyond and today the Christmas tree is seen as an endearing symbol of Christmas.

Christmas cards did not come into prominence until the 19th century, during the time that many of the more secular aspects of Christmas began to emerge. While the Europeans had distributed wood prints depicting Christian themes during the Middle Ages (5th to the 15th century), it was not until 1843 that English illustrator John Callcott Horsley designed the first modern Christmas card. On its cover were the words “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You,” with the scene of a family celebrating Christmas together. After his innovations in refining color lithography, German-born printer Louis Prang mass-produced a colorful Christmas card in the United States in 1875 that sold extremely well and sparked the tradition of exchanging cards.

Christmas was first known as The Feast of Nativity as early as 336. The word Christmas entered the English language by 1050, taken from the Old English phrase Christes maesse, meaning “festival of Christ.” The use of Xmas came into play as early at the 13th century; the “X” is the Greek letter chi which is an abbreviation of Christ (Khristos), and also represents the cross on which Jesus was crucified. The nativity scene was another 13rd century innovation by the famous and fascinating Christian mystic, Saint Francis of Assisi, one of my favorite Christian figures. Until his time, no one had ever thought to portray the birth of the infant Jesus.

While Christmas has become the major Christian holiday during the winter solstice in the Roman Catholic realm, the Eastern Orthodox Church still looks at Epiphany, celebrated on January 6th, as being the highlight of the solstice season. The Twelve Days of Christmas stretch from Christmas Day to Epiphany, which in the Eastern Churches is the alleged anniversary of Jesus’ baptism. In the Western Churches, it commemorates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles (in the form of the Three Wise Men—Matthew 2:1–12), and in both the Eastern and Western Churches is held in honor of Jesus’ first miracle at the marriage feast in Cana (John 2:1–11). Each of the twelve days is said to represent a different aspect of Christianity.

On the other end of Christmas is the celebration of Advent, from the Latin adventus which means “coming.” The Advent anticipates the coming of the Christmas season, each week representing a different way in which Christians perceive Christ: through the flesh, the Holy Spirit, death, and Christ’s judgment of the dead. The original length of time, still celebrated by the Orthodox church, started on November 11th on the Feast of Saint Martin as decreed by the earliest authentic record from 581 A.D. Near 600, Pope Gregory I changed the date to begin on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and this shorter time length is observed by the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and Episcopal churches. The first Sunday of Advent is regarded as the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, and the season serves a dual symbolism in the anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ. The German Lutherans were responsible for the tradition of the Advent wreath, which has four candles anchored in a circle of evergreen branches, symbolic of Christ’s rebirth. Each Sunday before Christmas, believers light an Advent candle in anticipation of the coming Holiday, often saying a prayer as they do.

There is a great deal of diversity and folklore that enter into many year-end solstice celebrations around the globe. Some of the more interesting are the Italians, whose children await not Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, but a good witch named La Befana on the Eve of Epiphany who rides her broom into their houses to distribute gifts. It seems that she was too busy to accompany the Three Wise Men on their visit to see the baby Jesus, so now she must atone for her fiasco by giving treats to good children, while leaving lumps of coal and bags of ash for the naughty boys and girls.

In Spain, and countries colonized by the Spanish, children play “swing the sun” on Christmas, each child trying to swing higher than the next after an old tradition of trying to lead the sun farther north in order to lengthen the days. The Eve of Epiphany, popularly known as Noche de Reyes, or Twelfth Night, finds children lining up their shoes outside the front door. The children will first put in barley to feed the camels of the wise men who will be passing by on their way to visit baby Jesus. When the excited children tumble out of bed the next day, the camels have eaten their fill and the wise men have left presents and candy in its place.

In Jerusalem, thousands of Christians around the world have gathered every year in Bethlehem to watch the annual rituals at the Church of Nativity. (The last two years, however, have been an exception, as fear of terrorism has reduced tourism by more than 80%.) On Christmas Eve, a horse and rider gripping a large cross lead Christians into the church. From here, they are led down a steep flight of stairs to what is believed to be the actual birthplace of Christ, the Grotto of the Nativity, a long, narrow underground cavern. Here they wrap an ancient image of baby Jesus in swaddling clothes and tenderly lay the figure in the manger.

Incidentally, notice that the birth place of Christ was believed to be a cavern. Our modern tradition of a wooden stable is very improbable, as most barns were caves and not wooden structures. Even if it were a manmade structure, a casual glance around the Holy Lands will reveal almost no wooden buildings. Nearly everything was made out of carved stone. In fact, according to Ray Vander Laan, host of That the World May Know video series put out by Focus on the Family, the Greek word tekton we translate as “carpenter” actually is closer in meaning to “builder” or “craftsman.” While Jesus and his father Joseph no doubt did work with wood for furniture and other small commodities, it is likely they spent the greatest bulk of their time working with stone. Again, I would encourage the skeptic to do even the most casual research on the Holy Lands and see if virtually all of the ancient structures (and many of the modern ones) are not constructed of stone. One will find very little woodwork anywhere. Among other Biblical examples, this is why the cedars used in the construction of Solomon’s temple had to be imported from Lebanon (1 Kings 5:6–9).

                                                             by Eric Knickerbocker

Information and resource taken from:  http://www.mrrena.com/Christmas.shtml

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More Historical Trivia about Christmas Trees

Like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted late in America. To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred. The pilgrims's second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out "pagan mockery" of the observance, penalizing any frivolity. The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against "the heathen traditions" of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated "that sacred event." In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.

RELATED LINKS


www.historychannel.com/exhibits/ holidays/christmas/trees.html

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