Live Christmas Tree Traditions

By: Elisabeth Ginsburg - About Elisabeth

An evergreen growing in the woods is just a tree. Harvested, brought inside and decorated, it becomes something else—a symbol of family and cultural tradition, a sparkplug that jump-starts memories and a focal point for Christmas celebrations.

Fresh trees are holiday staples, and not just in the United States and Canada. In Greenland, the desire for traditional live trees is so strong that residents import them for the Christmas holiday. Guatemala’s German settlers brought their traditions to that country in the late 1800’s, and today decorated trees may be set up indoors near traditional “Nacimiento” or nativity scenes.

While the Japanese do not celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, many have adopted the European custom of having a holiday tree decorated with small toys, ornaments and candles or candle-like lights. Sometimes these trees are also adorned with origami or folded paper creations. Among the most popular of these is the crane, which is a symbol of peace.

Here in the United States, where Christmas trees have been an important part of the holidays since the late 1800’s, fresh-cut trees remain popular. Fashions in tree decoration, however, have changed over the decades. In the 1890’s excess was the order of the day, and trees were heavy laden with blown or molded glass ornaments. After the turn of the century, there was a return to greater simplicity, along with the advent of public Christmas trees, like the one in Pasadena, California. Tree skirts arrived after 1910, originally to keep dripping candle wax off the floor beneath the tree. In the 1930’s the American glass ornament industry began with the founding of the Shiney Brite Company, which helped keep trees brightly arrayed through the difficult years of World War II.

After the War, plastic transformed American life, and millions of plastic ornaments appeared on family Christmas trees. Theme trees, with adornments dedicated to one color or theme came into vogue in the 1960’s, when limited edition ornaments also made their debut. Simplicity of a kind reigned again in the 1970’s when many Christmas trees wore the “country look,” with decorations that were either homemade or meant to look that way. This was superseded by a return to near-Victorian excess in the 1980’s. By the 1990’s, theme trees and limited edition ornaments returned with new twists.

What lies ahead in the new century? Some trend watchers predict that the renewed emphasis on environmentalism will result in an even greater appreciation of fresh cut trees, and a return to ornaments made of natural or recycled materials.