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The ornately decorated conifer is a tradition in many households during the Christmas period, and it’s a very old one, Time magazine reported.
Time also said greta was the person of the year...i can't read that garbage anymore
It’s not Christmas without the defining Christmas tree.
The ornately decorated conifer is a tradition in many households during the Christmas period, and it’s a very old one, Time magazine reported.
Historian Judith Flanders noted in her 2017 book “Christmas: A Biography” that the first Christmas trees emerged in present-day Germany during the 15th century.
In 1419, a guild in Freiburg set up a decorated fir to celebrate the feast of Adam and Eve, which fell on Christmas eve. The tree – decorated with apples, nuts, and gingerbread – would symbolize the tree of knowledge in the Bible story, and its popularity started spreading.
Flanders reported that the “first decorated indoor tree” was recorded in 1605, in Strasbourg, now in modern-day France. The city also had the oldest Christmas tree market back then, where sellers sold “Weihnachtsbäume,” or Christmas trees.
In North America, references to Christmas trees in private homes were documented in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, thanks to European immigrants and missionaries.
It was only later in the 19th century when gigantic outdoor Christmas trees started appearing in American cities.
The electricity lobby pushed for the first “National Christmas Tree” at the White House as a publicity stunt for the benefits of electricity.
As times changed, so did the trees: In the mid-twentieth century artificial trees started replacing the real fir and pine trees that once decorated American homes.
While fake trees have less environmental impact, the National Christmas Tree Association is encouraging consumers to buy real trees to support the local economies.
Going for the real deal might also be the right choice to keep traditions alive, A.R.C. Jones, a professor at Canada’s MacDonald College, told Time magazine back in 1964.
“We live in an artificial environment,” he said. “The Christmas tree is one of the few things left that is natural.”