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Advent begins November 29

The Almanac

The Christmas tree

A fir brought indoors and hung with lights. People wrote about it in Alsace and Germany more than 450 years ago.

A wood engraving of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children standing around a tall decorated tree on a table, hung with candles, gifts and sweets.
The Christmas Tree at Windsor Castle, drawn by J. L. Williams, Illustrated London News, December 1848. Public domain. Credits
When it is kept
Advent to Twelfth Night
Where it fits in the year
All through the season

The oldest written mention anyone has found is a forest record from 1527 in Stockstadt, Germany. It names a "weiennacht baum", a Christmas tree.1 Records point to a tree in Strasbourg Minster in 1539, and a stone carving in Turckheim, Alsace, dated 1576 is the oldest dated picture of one.2

An account from Strasbourg in 1605 says people set up trees in their homes and hung paper figures, apples, wafers and sugar on them.1 Later, in 1774, Goethe’s novel Werther describes a tree with wax candles, sweets and apples.1

In 1848 the Illustrated London News printed a picture of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children around a tree at Windsor Castle. The custom became popular across Britain.3 Trees were already known there: upper-class families had them in the 1700s.4 In 1850 an American magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, copied the picture, and many Americans saw a decorated tree for the first time.2

In December 1882 Edward H. Johnson, who worked with Thomas Edison, lit a tree in his New York home with 80 small electric bulbs in red, white and blue.5

A legend, not history

It is said that Martin Luther was the first to put lit candles on a tree. No firm record backs this up.2

A story that needs a correction

Prince Albert is often said to have brought the tree to England. Trees were already there before he came, and Queen Victoria wrote about lit trees in her 1832 diary. The 1848 picture made the tree fashionable. It did not start it.4,2

In the Bible

For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax. They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move. They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

Jeremiah 10:3-5

Some say this passage describes a Christmas tree. Four early Christian writers who explained it all read it as a warning about idols carved from wood. The Christmas tree reading only appears in the 1900s.6 The tree is a custom of homes and churches. No Bible verse gives it.

Sources

  1. Weihnachtsbaum, German Wikipedia (the 1527 record and the 1605 account)
  2. Christmas tree, Wikipedia (Strasbourg 1539, Turckheim 1576, Godey’s 1850, competing American claims)
  3. The Magic of the Tree, Victoria and Albert Museum
  4. Christmas tree, Newcastle University Special Collections
  5. The first electric Christmas tree lights, History.com
  6. Did ancient writers say that Jeremiah 10:3-5 was about Christmas trees? Roger Pearse

See a silver tree at 14 Juniper Court