Wishing You a Warm Holiday Season.
All
Hail the Glory of The Christmas Tree…
Well, this is it - the final
saga to my "Christmas Trilogy!"
From Santa Claus, to the story of the holidays, & finally a brief
tale of the Christmas Tree (this one's
quick & easy!)… ;-)
The Christmas Tree:
Long ago the tradition of the Holiday Season centered around the Winter Solstice (on or around Dec. 22nd). The shortest day of the year brought a period of great festival & lavish feasts, & to celebrate several cultures around this time would decorate their homes with evergreen boughs & various elements of agricultural life & color. Indeed, evergreens were seen as sacred because they were perennially alive. Such décor offered both a festive look & feel, but it was also deeply symbolic of life's conquest over the darkness & cold of the winter season. The Romans, Egyptians, Celts, & Druids all held such traditions.
It was the
Germanic People however that really started the tradition of the Festival Tree
in particular. In addition to boughs & wreaths they would bring a fresh cut
tree into their home as a kind of center-piece & decorate each with fruit
& gold - all symbols of prosperity & the coming harvest. Because it was
winter & the nights were long, it also carried symbolic attachments to
fertility.
Sometime
later, legend has it that Protestant Martin Luther was preparing a sermon while
walking home one winter evening. Pausing for a moment, he looked up through the
woodlands & was left in awe by the glorious nature of the stars & moon
glistening through the snow covered pine trees.
Reminiscent of the moment, he began the tradition of securing small
candles in his home's Festival Tree.
In the Melting Pot of America: The tradition of the Christmas tree however was
strictly a European tradition until sometime in the mid 1800's. German &
Dutch immigrants in Pennsylvania brought the tradition over but it took quite
sometime for the idea to catch on. The Puritan attitudes of America had 'no
place for such Pagan symbols of superfluous pomp & desecration.'
Massachusetts even went so far as to have such decorations outlawed!
Sometime in the 1840's however the British
Royals Queen Victoria & Prince Albert (who were held in very high esteem by
the upper class of Eastern Society) were seen in publications celebrating
Christmas around a royal tree of elegance & ornamentation. Soon thereafter such traditions came into
fashion & the Christmas Tree as we know it began to soon take hold. Shortly
thereafter, immigrants began to import ornaments from Germany & families
began adding more personal touches to make such a tradition their own.
In love &
sincerity, I wish you nothing but the best for the holiday season, & I hope
the New Year finds you happy, healthy, & prosperous in all that you strive
to be. - Rick D.
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