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The Christmas Tree
The tree as a symbol of Divine Life was well known by ancient peoples. In Egypt the sacred tree was the palm, the fir tree was was sacred in Rome, the cyprus in Greece, and the oak tree was predominant among the celtic peoples and the Druids. In the once densely forested Europe, sacred groves were common and some, as in Upsala, Sweden, are still maintained. By ancient tradition, fir trees are decorated at Midsummer in Sweden, elsewhere there is the setting of the May-pole which is decorated with bows, flowers, and gilt eggs as a celebration of life and renewal.
The Romans and the early Christian missionaries among the pagan people of the north are reported to have commanded the felling of the sacred groves. The locals were horrified as in fear they carried out Caesar's orders and destroyed the sacred groves near Marseilles. Frazer, in The Golden Bough, tells of the Lithuanian women pleading with their prince not to fell the sacred groves as ordered by St. Jerome of Prague, because the woods were a house of God who brought sunshine and rain. St. Boniface (born as Winfrid in Devonshire in 690 C.E.), following his ordination as Bishop of Mentz, cut down the sacred oak of Hesse dedicated to Jupiter and used the timber to build a chapel. Tradition describes the felling a tree in Geismer at his direction which wrecked everything but a fir sapling as it fell - the tree, Boniface said in a sermon on the nativity, of the Christ child. Before long, Christmas in Germany was celebrated by the planting of fir saplings. Many of the sacred trees of Ireland were spared the axe perhaps because, over time, they came to be identified with Christian saints. Near St. Brigid's Church in Kildare, for example, was once "a very high oak tree which St. Brigid loved much and blessed: of which the trunk (ca. 980) still remains: no one dares to cut it with a weapon but he who can break off any part of it with his hands deems it a great advantage...."
In sixteenth century Germany, fir trees were decorated with paper roses, apples, wafers, gilt, and sugar to commemorate Christmas. Martin Luther is credited with adding lighted candles to the tree. On a winter evening, composing a sermon as he walked toward his home, Luther was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles. The tradition spread throughout Europe and eventually arrived in the Americas.
The seventeenth century settlements of the Puritans ill-favored frivolity at Christmas and in 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) an offense; hanging decorations was punishable by fine. But against this, before long, was the arrival in Pennsylvania of newcomers from Germany for whom the Christbaum, or "Christ tree," was a firmly established tradition. By 1856, Christmas became a legal holiday in Massachusetts and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow commented: "we are in a transition state about Christmas here in New England. The old Puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so." And who would deny that the Christmas Tree lightens the spirit?
Alban Butler, Lives of the
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