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    Christmas Tree

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November 17, 2009

The history of the Christmas tree

In a recent letter to the editor, it was noted that we don’t have fireworks to celebrate a “summer holiday.”  Soon afterward, the question was asked, “Why should we call Christmas a ‘winter holiday’ to appease the non-Christians who might somehow be offended by the celebration of the birth of Christ?”

The question referred to Governor Beshear’s renaming our state’s Christmas Tree as our Holiday Tree.

Firstly, Independence Day — the Fourth of July — is a national holiday recognizing the establishment of our national independence from Great Britain. Christmas is a religious holiday that is recognized (if not celebrated) around the world.  It is because of the large number of Christians in our country who would not show up at work on the 25th of December that Christmas is a recognized national holiday.  This is not to say that many of our nation’s leaders, both past and present, are not Christians or that they would not otherwise celebrate the birth of Christ.

Secondly, the Christmas tree itself was originally the Yule tree, and was used by Germanic pagans to celebrate the winter solstice.  The evergreen tree, retaining its needles and the color of the living earth, was revered as the symbol of the return of light (and eventually life) to the world after the shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere). After the celebration, the tree was burned, again symbolizing the return of light; this is the origin of the Yule logs we burn at Christmas.

People all around this world have long celebrated the winter solstice as the return of light. As such, it has become a holiday — a holy day — for many religions, including Christianity. Christians celebrate Christmas (or Christ’s mass) as the birth of the one who is called the Light of the World. The winter solstice and Christmas used to fall on the same day, until corrections were made to the calendar which separated the two by a couple days.

It was Prince Albert, a German and the consort of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, who introduced the Christmas tree to English-speaking peoples in the early 19th century. Our custom of decorating an evergreen tree with lights at Christmas is not quite 200 years old. George Washington wouldn’t have recognized a Christmas tree, but the Hessian soldiers he fought at Trenton would have known it. And they would have known it as a Christmas tree as that nation had long been Christian at that time.

George Washington literally led the fight for freedom — for our freedom as a nation and as individuals to make our own choices which are free of the restraints imposed by others. We won that fight; and as a result, our Constitution guarantees us the freedom to worship or not as we choose, to worship in whichever manner seems right and good for the individual.  

The expectation that public offices, courthouses, schools and statehouses of our state and our nation recognize one religion while ignoring all others is not reflective of our professed belief in freedom of religion. For if all of us are not free, then none of us are free.

Governor Beshear is not making a compromise nor is he abandoning Christians for the sake of political expediency. He is honoring our Constitution, and he is recognizing that most peoples celebrate religious festivals at the time of the winter solstice — festivals that have been enjoined for thousands of years.  

To do otherwise is to say to those veterans we so recently honored, “You have fought and died for nothing.”

Laura Love, Woodbine

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