The evergreen fir tree has traditionally been used to celebrate winter festivals (pagan and Christian). The Pagans used to decorate it in their homes during the winter solstice, as it did in the spring. The Romans used Fir Trees to decorate their temples at the Festival of Saturnalia. Christians use it as a sign of God with everlasting life.

No one knows for sure when fir trees were first used as Christmas trees. It probably started around 1000 years ago in Northern Europe. Most early Christmas trees seem to have been hung upside down from the ceiling using chains (chandeliers / lighting hooks).

Other early Christmas trees, in many parts of Northern Europe, were planted in cherry or hawthorn plants (or a branch of the plant) in pots so that they would bloom at Christmas. If you can’t afford a real plant, people have made pyramids in the woods and decorated them with paper, apples and candles to make it look like a tree. Sometimes they are taken from house to house without being displayed at home.

Wooden pyramid trees are more likely to be similar to Paradise trees. They were used in medieval German mystery or miracle plays performed before churches during Christmas. In the early church calendars of the Saints, December 24 was the day of Adam and Eve. The Paradise Tree refers to the Garden of Eden. As a way of announcing the play, it is often marched around town before the play begins. These plays tell people who cannot read the Bible stories.

The first documented use of a tree for Christmas and New Year’s celebrations is argued between Tallinn in Estonia and Riga in Latvia! Both claim they have the first trees; Tallinn in 1441 and Riga in 1510. The two trees were set up by the ‘Brotherhood of Blackheads’, a group of local unmarried merchants, shipowners and foreigners in Livonia (now Estonia and Latvia).

Little is known about the trees that were placed in the town square, danced by the Brotherhood of Blackheads and then set on fire. This is like the custom of Yule Log. The word used for ‘tree’ also means mast or pole, and the tree may look like a ‘paradise tree’ or tree-shaped wood candlebra rather than a ‘real’ tree.

In the capital city of Riga, the capital of Latvia, there is a plaque engraved with “the first New Year’s tree in Riga in 1510” in eight languages.

An image from Germany in 1521 shows a tree parading through the streets. The man is dressed as a bishop and probably represents St. Nicholas.

In 1584, historian Baltasar Russo wrote of the fir tree adorned in the market square in Riga, where the young men “went with a flock of virgins and women, first sang and danced and then burnt the tree.” From 1570 there is a record of a small tree in Bremen, Germany. It is described as “a tree adorned with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers.” It was displayed at the ‘Guild-House’ (a meeting place for the business community of the city).

The first person to bring home a Christmas tree, as we know it today, may have been Martin Luther, a 16th-century German preacher. One story is told, one night before Christmas, he was walking through the forest and looking up to see the stars glistening through the branches of trees. It was so beautiful, he went home and told his children, which reminded Jesus of leaving the stars of heaven on Christmas Eve. Some say it is a tree similar to the ‘Riga’ tree, but it is not! The Riga tree was first made a few decades ago.

The custom of having Christmas trees may have traveled along the Baltic Sea, from Latvia to Germany. In the 1400s and 1500s, Germany and Latvia were now part of two neighboring large empires.

According to another story, Saint Boniface of Crediton (a village in Devon, UK) left England and went to Germany to teach pagan German tribes and convert them to Christianity. While worshiping the oak tree he saw a pagan group that was about to sacrifice a little boy. Furious, and to stop the sacrifice, St. Boniface cut down the oak tree and, to his surprise, a young fir tree sprouted from the roots of the oak tree. St. Boniface took it as a symbol of the Christian faith and his followers decorated the tree with candles, so that St. Boniface would teach the pagans at night.

There is another myth from Germany about how the Christmas tree came into existence, which reads:

Once on a cold Christmas Eve night, a Forester and his family gathered around the fire to stay warm in their cottage. Suddenly the door slammed shut. When the forester opened the door, a poor little boy stood on the door stairs, alone and alone. Forrester invited him to his house and the family fed him, rinsed him, and slept on the little boy’s own bed (he had to share it with his brother that night!). The next morning, Christmas morning, the family woke up with an angelic choir, and the poor little boy turned into Jesus, the child of Christ. The Christchild went into the garden in front of the cottage and tossed a branch from a fir tree and gifted the family to thank him for looking after him. So since then, people have remembered that night by bringing a Christmas tree into their homes!

Across the ocean, in the 19th century, Christmas trees weren’t at all popular, though Dutch and German settlers introduced them. Americans were less susceptible to the Queen’s influence. However, it was American civic leaders, artists, and authors who played on the image of a happy middle-class family exchanging gifts around a tree in an effort to replace Christmas customs that were seen as decadent, like wassailing. This family-centered image was further amplified by a very popular poem written by Clement Moore in 1822 known as the “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. The same poem conjured the modern picture of Santa Claus.

It took a long time before the Christmas tree became an integral part of American life during this faithful night. President Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) arranged to have the first Christmas tree in the White House, during the mid-1850s. President Calvin Coolidge (1885-1933) started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923.

Though traditionally not all Christian cultures adorned their homes with evergreens and presents, the influence exerted by the West and rising consumerism has turned the Christmas tree into a ubiquitous symbol. In fact, many people of other faiths have adopted the Christmas tree (See Japan for instance).

The Christmas tree has gone a long way from its humble, pagan origins, to the point that it’s become too popular for its own good. In the U.S. alone, 35 million Christmas trees are sold annually, joined by 10 million artificial trees, which are surprisingly worse from an environmental perspective. Annually, 300 million Christmas trees are grown in farms around the world to sustain a two-billion-dollar industry, but because these are often not enough, many firs are cut down from forests. This is why we recommend opting for more creative and sustainable alternatives to Christmas trees.

*from various sources.