The Complete Christmas
Collection
Christmas Recipes, Crafts
and Kids Activities and xmas stories. Modern
day Christmas trees originated in the 19th century Britain by Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert. During the Victorian era trees were the focus of celebration and
were decorated with toys, cakes, bonbons and other sweet treats. Young
women in the households made decorations from paper, silk, feathers, and lace
to hold the treats. After
1865 glass trinkets, wire ornaments were began in Germany. By
the 1880s Woolworths sold commercially produced Xmas tree ornaments. In
the early years real silver tinsel was used for Christmas decorating and the modern
version was began in the 1950s. Spiders are sometime given credit for building
webs in trees which sparkled in the morning dew and sunlight which inspired the
invention of tinsel. In
America fake trees gained popularity early in the twentieth century but not in
Britain until the 1950s. While plastic and aluminum were the trees of choice in
America, the UK had a penchant for feather trees in the 1920s which quickly disappeared
by the 1930s. Originally
in Victorian times candles were used for lights on trees. The invention of electricity
brought fairy lights to America in the mid 1880s. By the 1920s candles were rarely
used. President Franklin
Pierce brought the first Christmas tree in the White House during the mid-1850s.
President Calvin Coolidge started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony
on the White House lawn in 1923. The
fairy at the top of the Christmas tree was originally a little figure of the baby
Jesus. Christmas
tree farms originated during the depression. Nurserymen found that they could
make a profit by cutting evergreens for Christmas trees when they couldnt sell
them for landscaping. But
all Christmas trees were not started as a symbol of Christianity. The
Egyptians, Romans, Druids, and other cultures regarded the tree as a symbol of
life. They brought green branches into their homes on the Winter Solstice as a
symbol of lifes triumph over death. Druid
priests decorated oak trees with golden apples for their winter solstice agricultural
festivities. In the
middle ages, evergreen trees were decorated with red apples on December 24 as
the symbol of the Feast of Adam and Eve. Even
today, Christmas trees are unique to individual countries. In
Brazil where Christmas occurs during the summer, pine trees are decorated with
little pieces of cotton to represent falling snow. In
Greenland Christmas trees have to be imported because no trees live this far north.
In South Africa,
Christmas is a summer holiday. Instead of trees, windows are often draped with
sparkling cotton, wool, and tinsel. And
in the Ukraine a Christmas tree is not complete unless it has a spider and web
for good luck. For
more on Christmas Tree and other winter and holiday treats visit: http://www.apluswriting.net/christmas/xmastree.htm
Marilyn Pokorney
Freelance writer of science, nature, animals and the environment. Also loves crafts,
gardening, and reading. Website: http://www.apluswriting.net
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