Christmas Legends to Warm the Heart: The Christmas Tree
Christmas legends are part of the fun and fabric of the holiday... but what do you know about the legend of the Christmas tree?
Christmas legends make up a comfortable part of any Christmas. For example, the story of the Magi, Santa's origins, the Night Before Christmas, and, if you're from certain parts of the world, the purpose of the mysterious Black Peter provide excellent examples of Christmas legend.
But there are some things about Christmas that most of us just take for granted, unaware that they have any legendary significance at all. Take that Christmas tree, for example. Do you know the Christmas tree legend?
Take your pick...
Actually, several varieties of the legend of the Christmas tree exist. Most originate with the old German tradition of Tannenbaum (the Fir Tree), possibly celebrated as part of Yule, one of the tributary holidays of our modern Christmas.Ultimately, the notion of "Christmas tree" appears to derive from the eighth century, when St. Boniface ordered a sacred oak tree chopped down to prove that it wasn't sacred at all. It crushed every tree in its path when it fell, except a fir tree it miraculously missed. Boniface declared that this lucky tree represented the Christ Child.
Thereafter, German Christians celebrated the holiday by planting fir saplings. Eventually, they started chopping those down too, and started bringing them in their homes in the winter. These first Christmas trees stood undecorated.
Well, okay. But...
Fast-forward about 900 years, and we see modern-style Christmas trees appearing in German homes, complete with decorations (including paper roses, gilt, sugar, and apples). The province of Alsace even regulated how tall the trees stood. (No more than eight shoes' length).
Incidentally, any kind of evergreen tree counts as a Christmas tree. Though firs remained popular. Apple-hung pine trees, common to medieval religious plays, contributed to the Christmas tree tradition as well. By the 17th century, modern Christmas trees started to spread throughout Europe and Scandinavia.
Bright light! Bright light!
According to one interesting legend of Christmas, Martin Luther-- the founder of Lutheranism-- deserves thanks for Christmas lights. It's said he was fascinated by the sight of stars twinkling through the evergreens one night, so he set out to reproduce the effect with candles in a Christmas tree.
Prince Albert brought the tradition to England when he married Queen Victoria, and "spread the light", so to speak, to the rest of the Christian world from there. The first electric Christmas lights appeared on a Finnish tree in 1906, and lit up America by 1912.
Tree by tree
And there you have it: the legend of the Christmas tree. You might not have known it had one before, but just about everything Christmassy has roots in a Christmas legend. And now you can add it to the list of Christmas legends you pass on to your children.