History of Christmas Tree

Christmas is a festival that brings hope, happiness and fervor in every individual's life. This festive season is the best time of the year to spend quality time with one's family. People enjoy feasts, parties and family reunion organized during Christmas holiday season. Families come together to clean and decorate the home with twigs, wreaths, Christmas lights and so on. Christmas tree is a special thing during Christmas. The fresh smelling and evergreen Christmas tree fills the atmosphere with Christmas fever and gusto. Buying a Christmas tree and decorating it with ornaments, tinsel, topper is a special activity that everyone in the family enjoys doing.

Christmas tree is an evergreen coniferous pine, fir or spruce tree. People decorate this tree and keep it in the home, in the yard of the house during the Christmas season. The tree is decorated with ornaments, tinsel, lights, fruits, animals and so on. Traditionally the tree is decorated before the Christmas Eve. The real and artificial are the two types of Christmas tree. There are people who go for the real tree for its color and smell while there are few who go for artificial as they are easy to store and do not shed needles like real Christmas tree.

The Christmas tree was first seen in German town of Geismar. The Christmas tree was first time was used as a symbol of Christianity by St. Boniface in Germany. He cut down a Thor tree to remove the legitimacy of Norse gods in the local tribe of Germany. At that moment he saw the fir tree and took it as the Christmas tree that can be used in every house. Martin Luther King tried to use the symbol of Christmas tree for Christmas. He focused on it by saying that the Garden of Eden had this tree as Tree of Life. Slowly people started accepting the tradition.

The tradition of having a Christmas tree at home started in sixteenth century in German town of Livonia. In the beginning, these trees were erected at public spaces so that everyone can have a look at it. The young men were seen dancing and singing round the tree with young girls. Later on, the tree was decorated with natural products like fruits and nuts. Apples, dates and flowers were used for decoration. With passage of time, candles were used so that the tree looked bright and well -lit.

The people who erected Christmas tree were majority of Protestants. Roman Catholic did not easily accept the tradition. From Germany, Christmas tree went to other European countries. The urban population accepted the tradition of erecting Christmas tree before the rural population. The royal family of England was the first to have Christmas tree in the palace. The tree traveled from England to United States. The German immigrants inn America helped to start the tradition of Christmas tree in various parts of America.