Christmas Tree

Merry Christmas friends .Its Christmas yet again! The festivities all around –east or west, Christians or no Christians. One perhaps cannot imagine Christmas without Santa or the Christmas tree.  Here is an attempt to trace the custom of decorating Christmas tree. Hope it adds colour to the already festive mood.

The custom of the Christmas tree developed in early modern Germany with predecessors that can be traced to the 16th and possibly the 15th century, in which "devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes". Christmas trees are hung in St. George's Church, Sélestat since 1521 The Christmas tree has also been known as the "Yule-tree", especially in discussions of its folkloristic origins.

Georgia

Georgians have their own traditional Christmas tree called Chichilaki, made from dried up hazelnut or walnut branches that are shaved to form a small coniferous tree. These pale-colored ornaments differ in height from 20 cm to 3 meters. Georgians believe that Chichilaki resembles the famous beard of St. Basil the Great, who is thought to visit people during Christmas similar to the Santa Claus tradition

 

Poland

There was an old pagan custom of suspending at the ceiling a branch of fir, spruce or pine called Podłaźniczka associated with Koliada. The branches were decorated with apples, nuts, cookies, colored paper, stars made of straw, ribbons and colored wafers. People believed in the tree magical powers linked with harvesting and success in the next year.In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, these traditions were almost completely replaced by the German custom of decorating the Christmas tree

 

Scandinavia

In Norse mythology, the oak was sacred to the thunder god, Thor. Thor's Oak was a sacred tree of the Germanic Chatti tribe. According to legend, the Christianisation of the heathen tribes by Saint Boniface was marked by the oak's being replaced by the fir,whose triangular shape symbolizes the Trinity as a "sacred" tree.

Estonia and Latvia

Customs of erecting decorated trees in wintertime can be traced to Christmas celebrations in Renaissance-era guilds in Northern Germany and Livonia. The first evidence of decorated trees associated with Christmas Day are trees in guildhalls decorated with sweets to be enjoyed by the apprentices and children. In Livonia (present-day Latvia and Estonia), in 1441, 1442, 1510 and 1514, the Brotherhood of Blackheads erected a tree for the holidays in their guild houses in Riga and Reval (now Tallinn). On the last night of the celebrations leading up to the holidays, the tree was taken to the Town Hall Square where the members of the brotherhood danced around it.

Canada

The tradition was introduced to Canada in the winter of 1781 by Brunswick soldiers stationed in the Province of Quebec to garrison the colony against American attack. General Friedrich Adolf Riedesel and his wife, the Baroness von Riedesel, held a Christmas party at Sorel, delighting their guests with a fir tree decorated with candles and fruits