Does anyone know when did the Christmas tree come to America and what are the customs and origins of the the Christmas tree,& why are some trees decorated and fresh smelling that is makes you wish the tree was a giant cookie you could eat?http://www.hammacher.com/holidaytrees.asp?catId=40&promo=left_nav
The Christmas tree actually predates Christianity by centuries! Ancient Romans decorated trees with small pieces of metal during Saturnalia, their winter festival in honor of Saturnus, the god of agriculture. There is much evidence to suggest that December 25th was chosen as the day to celebrate Christ’s birth in order to take over the holiday from the pagans. (Most historians place the birth of Christ as in the spring or summer; shepherds don’t watch over their flocks in the fields in the dead of winter! Historians believe the Emporer Constantine did this around the year 390 to combine Christmas with the Saturn and Mithras celebrations and also with the cult of Sol Invictus, a form of Sunday worship that had come to Rome from Syria a century before).
Middle Ages
During the middle ages, an evergreen was decorated with apples and called the Paradise tree, as a symbol of the feast of Adam and Eve and was held on December 24th each year.
1500’s
The modern Christmas trees appeared in the middle 1500’s. The trees were sold at local markets and set up in homes without any ornaments in the Strassbourg area of Alsace in 1531, which was then a part of Germany.
1600’s
The oldest record of a decorated Christmas tree came from a 1605 diary found in Strasburg. The tree was decorated with paper roses, apples and candies.
In Austria & Germany during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the tops of evergreens were cut and hung upside down in a living room corner. They were decorated with apples, nuts and strips of red paper.
Tinsel was invented in Germany around 1610. Real silver was used at that time, and special machines were invented to pull the silver out into wafer thin strips for tinsel. Silver was durable, but tarnished quickly, especially with candlelight which was used at that time. Attempts were made to use a mixture of lead and tin, but this was heavy and tended to break under its own weight so was not so practical. So silver was used for tinsel right up to the mid-20th century when plastics took its place.
1700’s
The first record of Christmas trees in America was for children in the German Moravian Church’s settlement in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Christmas 1747. Actual trees were not decorated, but wooden pyramids covered with evergreen branches were decorated with candles.
The custom of the Christmas tree was introduced in the United States during the War of Independence by Hessian troops. An early account tells of a Christmas tree set up by American soldiers at Fort Dearborn, Illinois, the site of Chicago, in 1804. Most other early accounts in the United States were among the German settlers in eastern Pennsylvania. Just as the first trees introduced into Britain did not immediately take off, the early trees introduced into America by the Hessian soldiers were not recorded in any particular quantity. Even so, it is known that the Pennsylvanian German settlements had community trees as early as 1747.
Decorations were still of a ‘home-made’ variety. Young Ladies spent hours at Christmas Crafts, quilling snowflakes and stars, sewing little pouches for secret gifts and paper baskets with sugared almonds in them. Small bead decorations, fine drawn out silver tinsel came from Germany together with beautiful Angels to sit at the top of the tree. Candles were often placed into wooden hoops for safety.
1800’s – The tree really catches on in the English speaking countries
Charles Minnegrode introduced the custom of decorating trees in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1842.
Somewhere around 1846 – 48, Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, was credited with bringing the first Christmas tree to Windsor Castle for the Royal Family. Some historians state that in actuality Queen Charlotte, Victoria’s grandmother, recalled that a Christmas tree was in the Queen’s lodge at Windsor on Christmas Day in 1800. It is certain that in the Illustrated London News in 1846, an illustration of Queen Victoria, Prince, Albert and their children around a Christmas tree appeared. Unlike the previous Royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at Court immediately became fashionable – not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society.
The decorations were tinsels, silver wire ornaments, candles and small beads. All these had been manufactured in Germany and East Europe since the 17th century. The custom was to have several small trees on tables, one for each member of the family, with that persons gifts stacked on the table under the tree.
In America, until this time, Christmas trees were considered a quaint foreign custom. America was so geographically large, that it tended to have ‘pockets’ of customs relating to the immigrants who had settled in a particular area. It was not until the telegraph communications really got going in the 19th century, that such customs began to spread. Thus references to decorated trees in America b
Grupa Drvar – Nema raja bez rodnoga kraja
The dramatization of the epic contribution of Professor Chinua Achebe’s book, “Things Fall Apart”. The book, transcribed to more than 300 languages worldwide is renowned for its contribution towards the development of African History as till date, it remains a point of reference far beyond post secondary education in Africa and beyond. It is thought that the account, as portrayed in the book, depicts customs and tradition of the Igbo tribe of Nigeria, and drawn from events as they happened in Ogidi, the Home town of much admired CHINUALIMOGU ACHEBE.
The dramatization of the epic contribution of Professor Chinua Achebe’s book, “Things Fall Apart”. The book, transcribed to more than 300 languages worldwide is renowned for its contribution towards the development of African History as till date, it remains a point of reference far beyond post secondary education in Africa and beyond. It is thought that the account, as portrayed in the book, depicts customs and tradition of the Igbo tribe of Nigeria, and drawn from events as they happened in Ogidi, the Home town of much admired CHINUALUMOGU ACHEBE.
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