by The origins of Christmas tree decorations include German Christians, Queen Victoria, and Thomas Edison’s business partner. Here are their stories.
Of all the holidays, Christmas has the most interesting backstory. The icons and traditions we associate with it have been assembled gradually, over thousands of years, and from a wide range of different sources.
It’s really a history of humanity, over the same period (read my post about the history of Christmas, here).
But each part of Christmas can be subdivided further, with their constituent elements revealing additonal backstories. Below are some of these for Christmas trees, and the things that hang on them.
CHRISTMAS TREES
As well as Christmas Eve, December 24 has another significance in the Christian calendar. In the Middle Ages this was the ‘Feast of Adam and Eve’, an annual event honouring these Biblical figures as the parents of humanity.
An aspect of the celebration was the ‘Paradise Tree’. This represented the tree from the Garden of Eden, that Eve had been tempted from.
Paradise Trees were common in western Europe, and were particularly popular in Germany. In that country a fir tree, an abundant species, was usually used.
In December, German Christians would erect a Paradise Tree inside their home, and decorate them with wafers to symbolise the Eucharist. Over time the decorations became more elaborate; candles were added, symbolising Christ as the ‘light of the world’, and figurines representing Jesus and other figures from the Bible.
Topping a Christmas Tree with a star also derives from this period. The star represents the Christmas star, described in the Bible as the means to guide the three wise men to the birthplace of Jesus.
By the 18th century, Paradise Trees had morphed into Christmas Trees, and the custom was widespread among German Lutherans.
TINSEL
Tinsel can also be traced to the Middle Ages. The word was originally used to describe a type of lightweight fabric, enhanced with gold or silver thread to give a metallic effect.
Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII, wore a ‘tynsel’ veil at her coronation in 1553.
Decorative tinsel was invented in Nuremburg, Germany, in the early 17th century. Made from shards of actual silver plate, it was originally the preserve of wealthy households.
As silver tarnishes quickly, cheaper materials were soon substituted, and its use on Christmas Trees became widespread.
Exactly what tinsel is meant to represent, is debated.
In Germany, Poland and the Ukraine there is a folk tale of a poor peasant widow, unable to afford Christmas presents for her young children. The family plant a pinecone which grows into a Christmas Tree, but they are too poor even to decorate that.
On Christmas morning, they wake to find spiders have spun webs across their tree; when the sun’s rays hit them, they sparkle like decorations. Tinsel was later created to pay homage to this story; in some European countries, spiders and spiderwebs are used as decorations instead.
Another version returns to the three wise men seeking Jesus: tinsel is said by some to represent the starry night, on that first Christmas.
CHRISTMAS BAUBLES
Christmas Baubles are another German invention. They are even responsible for the word: ‘baubel’ in German, means trinket.
Among the early decorations of Christmas trees were pastries and cookies, these were often baked into shapes like stars, hearts and flowers. As these did not keep long, more durable versions were eventually created instead.
In the mid-16th century, Lauscha based craftsman Hans Greiner began producing glass blown ornaments to be used as Christmas decorations. Greiner initially made strings of glass beads, later he expanded to other designs.
The glass was inserted into a clay mould while molten, and blown to fill the shape. After it had set and cooled, silver nitrate was added to give it a sparkly appearance.
Other glass blowers copied Greiner’s technique, and Lauscha made ornaments became a significant holiday industry. The practice later spread throughout Germany.
QUEEN VICTORIA’s CHRISTMAS TREE
Christmas trees jumped from Germany to England in the 19th century. The catalyst was the marriage of Queen Victoria.
Victoria wed in February 1840; the groom was her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
From a noble family, Albert had been raised a Lutheran in central Germany. This meant he had grown up with Christmas trees, and their seasonal decorations.
When he moved to England to be the Queen’s consort, he brought these traditions with him.
The British public were initially wary of Albert, some controversy attached to the Queen marrying an ‘outsider’. But interest in the royal couple was enormous, and the press covered their activities in detail.
In December 1848, the couple were depicted in a Christmas illustration produced by the London Evening News. This showed Victoria and Albert with their children, standing around a beautifully decorated Christmas Tree; at the time, a holiday tradition still largely unknown in England.
The image was widely reproduced, and Christmas Trees instantly became fashionable. In the ensuing decades, the scope of the British Empire would spread them around the world.
CANDY CANES
From the 19th century onwards, America would supply many of the newer traditions associated with Christmas. Among these are peppermint flavoured candy canes, sold first as a confection, then used as decoration.
Stories circulate of candy canes being invented in Germany in the 17th century, but hard evidence is lacking. Instead, an American cookbook published in 1844, ‘The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-Cook, and Baker’, has the first confirmed reference to ‘candy sticks’.
By the 1860s these had evolved into a cane shape, so they could be hung on Christmas trees.
The first candy canes were plain sugar flavoured, it is not known precisely when peppermint was added to the recipe. But the motive was probably practical.
Peppermint is a natural animal deterrent, candy canes were hung on Christmas trees at least partially to keep household pets and rodents away from them.
ELECTRIC CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
As noted above, early Christmas trees were often decorated with candles. Because this was a fire hazard, it is not surprising these were eventually replaced with electric lights.
Fittingly, the first of these came from the lab of inventor Thomas Edison, who had done much to make electric lightbulbs practical.
Edison completed his first high resistance, incandescent electric light in January 1879. For Christmas the following year, he hung strings of lights around his workshop at Menlo Park.
One of Edison’s partners, Edward H. Johnson, was inspired. For Christmas 1882 he hand wired a string of 80 red, blue and white lights, and hung them on the Christmas tree at his home in New York.
While this was a fun novelty for Johnson and his family, Christmas lights would take a long time to catch on. It was not until 1917 that Albert Sadacca, owner of a chain of novelty stores, began mass producing them for sale to the public.
In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge ordered electric lights be added to the ‘National Christmas Tree’ that stood in front of the White House. This helped popularise them in America.
In a sign of the changing nature of international influence, America’s cultural power in the 20th century then carried them to other countries.
