My Opinion

Christmas tree

By brokencode ⋅ December 25, 2006 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

The Christmas tree first made its appearance in America in the middle of the 18th century, thanks to German immigrants. But a hundred years later it was still rare. In 1851 a Cleveland, Ohio reverend who had recently emigrated from Germany put up a Christmas tree in his local church. He was roundly condemned. Nobody before had ever put up a Christmas tree in an American church. Victorians in the latter half of the 19th century slowly began adopting the German tradition, but the Christmas tree remained controversial. In the 1880s the New York Times editorialized against the Christmas tree. When Teddy Roosevelt became president he denounced the practice of cutting down trees for Christmas. Good conservationist that he was, he declared the practice a waste of timber.

The origin of the Christmas tree is difficult to pin down as so many cultures had sacred trees. The Roman Saturnalia festival included the decorating of houses with fir branches. The Norse had Yggdrasil, the Great Tree of Life, which some contend is the original Christmas tree. Others credit the enemies of ancient Israel, quoting Jeremiah’s condemnation of sacred trees in Jeremiah 10, verses 2-4:
Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are false. A tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. Men deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.

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