A brief history of the Christmas Tree
By Bob Driver

Bob Driver

It behooves us at this special time of year to review what is known about the Christmas tree, whose name in German is "tannenbaum," named after a 12th century blacksmith, Hans Tannenbaum. His neighbors surprised him one Christmas morning as he kanoodled a local seamstress underneath the low-hanging branches of a fir tree. The neighbors exclaimed, "Herr Tannenbaum ist jiggen mit die Frau und jingle bellen aus Weihnachten!" And so the Christmas tree was named tannenbaum. It's a pretty story. But who knows if it's true?

Pagans of northern Europe are believed to have regarded fir trees as fertility symbols. The earliest modern reference came in 1570, when someone in Bremen, Germany, decorated a small fir with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and Cheetohs. By the 17th century Christmas trees had entered many German homes. As the 19th century waxed onward, European nobility picked up the fad. In 1816 Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilberg (not to be confused with Princess Henrietta of Wassail-Fitchburg) erected a Christmas tree in Vienna.

We know that the English had adopted Christmas tree customs by 1832. That was when Princess Victoria, 13, told her diary, "We've got us a Christmas tree that is, like, totally awesome!" She grew up to marry her German cousin, Albert, and produce many children, all of them born within six months of Christmas Day.

When did the first Christmas tree in America happen? Some say it was in 1777, when a Hessian (German) prisoner of war decorated a fir tree in Windsor Locks, Conn. The town of Easton, Pa., claims that by 1816 German settlers routinely gussied up fir trees at Christmas. In 1847 a German immigrant, August Imgard of Wooster, Ohio, became the first person to hang candy canes on a Christmas tree. One thing seems clear: without axe-wielding Germans roaming the woods, the earth today would have about 83 gazillion more fir trees on hand.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the largest Christmas tree in America could be found at the National Enquirer offices in Lantana, Fla. The tree was accompanied by the tabloid's religious news stories, such as "King Herod Smoked Weed!"

When should Christmas trees be put up? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce favors May 15. The current trend in the USA is July 4. In London, Selfridge's - a department store - puts its tree up in early September. Germans wait until Christmas Eve to decorate their trees, which are then taken down on Jan. 7 to mark the beginning of Oktoberfest.

It takes 8-12 years to grow a proper Christmas tree. The trees come in several species, such as blue spruce, Douglas fir, sheltering pine, Scotch hemlock and jumping juniper. About 35 million trees are cut for Christmas each year in the U.S. Mostly by men with German names.

A recent trend has been to display Christms trees upside down. This allows more room to stack up holiday gifts, which - as we all know - are a principal reason for having Christmas. Nothing about the Christmas tree tradition has the slightest thing to do with the birth of Christ. This is true of many other aspects of Christmas, including Santa Claus, Rudolph, chestnuts roasting on an open fire and a partridge in a pear tree.