Christmas Tree History

By: Elisabeth Ginsburg - About Elisabeth

Every year millions of people in America and around the world celebrate the holidays by decorating Christmas trees. But ask someone how the custom got started and you’re likely to get a blank stare.

The Christmas tree tradition has long roots. Evergreens, which stay fresh and verdant through even the coldest winter, have long been a symbol of life and hope. The trees and boughs have been associated with midwinter celebrations since at least Roman times, and may also have been used by Druids in ancient Britain. In the Middle Ages, Germans and Scandinavians were reportedly using fresh cut trees to mark the winter solstice and affirm their faith in the eventual return of warmth and sunshine.

Around the same time, in 1510, early written records describe a holiday celebration in Riga, capital of Latvia, where local merchants set up an outdoor tree, decorated it with artificial roses, then, after dancing and other festivities, set the tree on fire.

The Christmas tree may have landed in America in the 1770’s with the Hessian troops who came to fight the American Revolution. It’s also possible that German settlers transplanted and spread the custom even earlier.

A more extravagant German Christmas tree tradition came to England in 1840 when the German-born Prince Albert married the young Queen Victoria. The newlyweds’ Christmas tree was decorated with an array of blown glass ornaments, and it was widely admired, sparking a vogue for similar trees throughout England. The fashion spread to America, and by 1890 the enterprising dime store magnate, F.W. Woolworth, had begun importing large numbers of German-made glass ornaments to the United States. Germany continued to produce most of the world’s fine blown and molded glass ornaments until the post-World War II partition of Germany put Thuringia, the hub of ornament making, into communist East Germany where the old art was not valued.

In 1851, an upstate New York State farmer was the first to sell fresh cut trees in New York City. The idea caught on, and by 1900 Christmas trees had grown so popular that conservationists, concerned about deforestation, began encouraging the practice of planting new trees when mature specimens were harvested. Thirty years later, as the Great Depression engulfed America, nurserymen established the first tree farms to provide an ongoing, renewable supply of perfectly shaped Christmas trees for the mass market. Thirty-four to thirty-six million trees are produced each year and 95% are shipped or sold directly from Christmas tree farms. Now, in the twenty-first century, tree farmers continue to harvest beautiful, fragrant souvenirs of the winter woods for homes all over America.