The History of the Christian Christmas Tree

It's generally believed that the first real Christian Christmas tree dates back to eighth century Germany. Boniface, an English missionary, introduced a decorated fir tree in homage to the Christ Child, as a replacement for the customary pagan sacrifices to Odin's sacred oak. As always, when the Christian church sought, for political reasons, to take of a pagan celebration and link it to a Christian festival, a legend grew up that supported the new interpretation of the ancient activity, so it is claimed that Saint Boniface, at that time simply an English monk, came upon a group of pagans who were cutting down a fir tree to use as a stake for a human sacrifice – to placate the winter gods they were going to burn a child alive. To stop the sacrifice and save the child, the saint smashed the fir tree with one blow of his fist. Instantly, another, smaller fir sprang up in its place, which he told the pagans was the Tree of Life and represented the eternal life that comes with Christianity.

Later, evergreen decorated trees were used to symbolize the Garden of Eden in medieval plays telling the stories of Christ's life. The trees were brought into halls where ‘mystery’ plays were shown, and hung with fruit, either dried or fake, to represent the tree of good and evil.

By the mid seventeenth century, Christmas trees with decorations were becoming popular - people would cut small firs and decorate them with sweetmeats, fruit and candles. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Christmas tree tradition had spread from Germany to other northern European countries and it was Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's German husband, who started the English tradition of having a decorated tree at Christmas.

Christian tree photograph by Merfam, used under a creative commons attribution licence.