Christmas tree-tradition and custom worldwide

Christmas tree is today an integral part of Christmas day celebration throughout the world. It appears a great idea to me to compile the brief history of Christmas tree and the related customs around the world to add to the festivities. Merry Christmas to all readers .

Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood were scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.

Christmas Trees around the World

Canada
German settlers migrated to Canada from the United States in the 1700s. They brought with them many of the things associated with Christmas we cherish today—Advent calendars, gingerbread houses, cookies—and Christmas trees. When Queen Victoria’s German husband, Prince Albert, put up a Christmas tree at Windsor Castle in 1848, the Christmas tree became a tradition throughout England, the United States, and Canada.

Mexico
In most Mexican homes the principal holiday adornment is el Nacimiento (Nativity scene). However, a decorated Christmas tree may be incorporated in the Nacimiento or set up elsewhere in the home. As purchase of a natural pine represents a luxury commodity to most Mexican families, the typical arbolito (little tree) is often an artificial one, a bare branch cut from a copal tree (Bursera microphylla) or some type of shrub collected from the countryside.

Britain
The Norway spruce is the traditional species used to decorate homes in Britain. The Norway spruce was a native species in the British Isles before the last Ice Age, and was reintroduced here before the 1500s.

Greenland
Christmas trees are imported, as no trees live this far north. They are decorated with candles and bright ornaments.

Guatemala
The Christmas tree has joined the “Nacimiento” (Nativity scene) as a popular ornament because of the large German population in Guatemala. Gifts are left under the tree on Christmas morning for the children. Parents and adults do not exchange gifts until New Year’s Day.

Brazil
Although Christmas falls during the summer in Brazil, sometimes pine trees are decorated with little pieces of cotton that represent falling snow.

Ireland
Christmas trees are bought anytime in December and decorated with colored lights, tinsel, and baubles. Some people favor the angel on top of the tree, others the star. The house is decorated with garlands, candles, holly, and ivy. Wreaths and mistletoe are hung on the door.

Sweden
Most people buy Christmas trees well before Christmas Eve, but it’s not common to take the tree inside and decorate it until just a few days before. Evergreen trees are decorated with stars, sunbursts, and snowflakes made from straw. Other decorations include colorful wooden animals and straw centerpieces.

Norway
Nowadays Norwegians often take a trip to the woods to select a Christmas tree, a trip that their grandfathers probably did not make. The Christmas tree was not introduced into Norway from Germany until the latter half of the 19th century; to the country districts it came even later. When Christmas Eve arrives, there is the decorating of the tree, usually done by the parents behind the closed doors of the living room, while the children wait with excitement outside. A Norwegian ritual known as “circling the Christmas tree” follows, where everyone joins hands to form a ring around the tree and then walk around it singing carols. Afterwards, gifts are distributed.

Ukraine
Celebrated on December 25th by Catholics and on January 7th by Orthodox Christians, Christmas is the most popular holiday in the Ukraine. During the Christmas season, which also includes New Year’s Day, people decorate fir trees and have parties.

Spain
A popular Christmas custom is Catalonia, a lucky strike game. A tree trunk is filled with goodies and children hit at the trunk trying to knock out the hazel nuts, almonds, toffee, and other treats.

Italy
In Italy, the presepio (manger or crib) represents in miniature the Holy Family in the stable and is the center of Christmas for families. Guests kneel before it and musicians sing before it. The presepio figures are usually hand-carved and very detailed in features and dress. The scene is often set out in the shape of a triangle. It provides the base of a pyramid-like structure called the ceppo. This is a wooden frame arranged to make a pyramid several feet high. Several tiers of thin shelves are supported by this frame. It is entirely decorated with colored paper, gilt pine cones, and miniature colored pennants. Small candles are fastened to the tapering sides. A star or small doll is hung at the apex of the triangular sides. The shelves above the manger scene have small gifts of fruit, candy, and presents. The ceppo is in the old Tree of Light tradition which became the Christmas tree in other countries. Some houses even have a ceppo for each child in the family.

South Africa
Christmas is a summer holiday in South Africa. Although Christmas trees are not common, windows are often draped with sparkling cotton wool and tinsel.

Philippines
Fresh pine trees are too expensive for many Filipinos, so handmade trees in an array of colors and sizes are often used. Star lanterns, or parol, appear everywhere in December. They are made from bamboo sticks, covered with brightly colored rice paper or cellophane, and usually feature a tassel on each point. There is usually one in every window, each representing the Star of Bethlehem.

China
Of the small percentage of Chinese who do celebrate Christmas, most erect artificial trees decorated with spangles and paper chains, flowers, and lanterns. Christmas trees are called “trees of light.”

Japan
For most of the Japanese who celebrate Christmas, it’s purely a secular holiday devoted to the love of their children. Christmas trees are decorated with small toys, dolls, paper ornaments, gold paper fans and lanterns, and wind chimes. Miniature candles are also put among the tree branches. One of the most popular ornaments is the origami swan. Japanese children have exchanged thousands of folded paper “birds of peace” with young people all over the world as a pledge that war must not happen again.

Georgia

The 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 (7.9 in) to 3 meters (9.8 feet). Chichilakis are most common in the Guria and Samegrelo regions of Georgia near the Black Sea, but they can also be found in some stores around the capital of Tbilisi. 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. Some people believed that the tree had magical powers that were 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.

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. A Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 reports that a small tree decorated with "apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers" was erected in the guild-house for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas Day. In 1584, the pastor and chronicler Balthasar Russow in his Chronica der Provinz Lyfflandt (1584) wrote of an established tradition of setting up a decorated spruce at the market square where the young men "went with a flock of maidens and women, first sang and danced there and then set the tree aflame".

My Tryst with Jesus-14 Station to the cross

The Via Dolorosa is the road Jesus walked from the place of Pontius Pilate’s sentencing to Golgotha (the location of the crucifixion), and is the most sacred Christian by-way in the world. It gives an amazing feeling when one walks this road.   Of the 14 stations, which Christians have been walking for over a thousand years, the most famous are the Praetorian, where Jesus took up the cross, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Each station is marked with a medallion indicating the station in Roman numerals. I was lucky to witness all the 14 Stations and would like to give the snapshot of these as below:

1^st Station , where Jesus was condemned to death

2^nd Station , where Jesus carries his cross. It was here where Pontius Pilate gave his famous order “Ecce Homo” (behold the man).

3^rd Station, where Jesus falls the first time

4^th Station is the place where Jesus met his mother

5^th Station, where Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry his cross

6^th Station is where Veronica had wiped the face of Jesus  creating the Veil of Veronica. The Veil supposedly was imprinted with the image of Christ after she wiped his visage.

7^th Station is where Jesus fell the second time

8^th Station is the place where Jesus met the women of Jerusalem

9^th Station is where Jesus fell the third time

10^th Station is the spot where clothes of Jesus were taken away

11^th Station, where Jesus is nailed on the cross

12^th Station, Jesus dies on the cross

13^th Station, The body of Jesus is brought down from the cross

14^th Station, Jesus is laid in the tomb.

Stations 10-14 are where the present day Church of the holy Sepulchre stands.  By tradition this is the holiest place for Catholic and Orthodox Christians and marks the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and Resurrection. It was completed in 335AD, and its basilica was constructed on the foundations of an ancient Roman temple to Venus (Aphrodite). The actual sepulchre is inside the Edicule, a two-room chapel underneath the church’s. There are separate prayer times for the various denominations.

Entrance to Church of Holy Sepulchre

The Holy Anointing : Immediately upon entering, the church opens up to the southern hall. On the floor lies the Stone of the Anointing or Unction. According to tradition, this is the spot where the church commemorates the preparation of the body of Christ for burial after he was removed from the cross. Christ's body was anointed with myrrh and aloes and wrapped in a clean linen cloth for the burial according to the Jewish tradition of those days. The slab is made from limestone marble and dates to 1808, replacing the previous 12th century slab when it was destroyed. On the outside wall of the Catholicon, behind the stone, is a large mosaic depicting the anointing of Christ for burial.

Latin calvary : To the right of the Stone of the Anointing are a series of steep stairs that lead up to the second floor—the tip of Golgotha. The first room is the place where Christ was nailed to the cross. This chapel is a Catholic Franciscan altar dedicated to the Nailing of the Cross (Station 11 of the Via Dolorosa).

The Rock of Golgotha (place of crucifixion) : Adjacent to this chapel is the second room—the Greek Orthodox Calvary—the spot where Christ was crucified and covers the actual Rock of Golgotha. For the other Christian Churches this is also known as Station 12 of the Via Dolorosa. The entire rock can be seen through the glass covering on either side of the altar, and beneath the altar is a small opening that allows pilgrims to touch the rock.

The Chapel of the Finding of the Cross, according to tradition, is the area where St. Helen discovered the True Cross during the course of the Church's excavations around 330 AD. She discovered three crosses. To discern which of the three crosses belonged to Christ, and which belonged to the thieves, a sick man was brought to touch each one in turn. He was miraculously healed by only one and this is the one that has since been distributed to all Christian Patriarchates across the world.

The Prison of Christ is a small dark area where those crucifying Christ put him temporarily before crucifying him

The Edicule :This structure preserves the location of Christ's tomb.  Though the cave here was carved away by a Muslim ruler 1000 years ago, a clear history remains that this has been the revered location of the tomb. Earlier the Roman emperor Hadrian erected a large platform of earth over the whole area for the construction of a temple to Venus.  Jerome adds to Eusebius' statement that a statue of Jupiter was on the site for 180 years (AD 140-320)  When Constantine converted the empire to Christianity, he had the pagan temples dismantled, the earth removed and a church built over the spot.

I had the most amazing experience here outside the aedicule. There was huge queue outside the aedicule and there was very little time left for us as the bus was to leave after some time and we were getting a reminder to leave quickly from our coordinator. While in the church, we met an Indian Father who was an office bearer in the church. He offered to take two of us in the aedicule because people in the queue will not like breaking of the queue and it would have been unfair to them. Our colleagues decided that our Christian friend can go and one of our senior colleagues desired to go. Obviously there was no two opinions on our Christian friend, I could not speak against my senior colleague although I desperately wanted to enter the tomb of Jesus. I could just murmur in little disappointment that I have seen the birth site of Jesus and I wanted to see the tomb of Jesus too. One of my other colleague said “it’s ok let’s wait for them outside”. I was disappointed. The Father took both of our colleague to the entrance of the tomb.I constantly looked at them. All of a sudden, the Father turned around and he rushed towards me. He caught hold of my arms and pulled me saying “hurry”. I can’t explain the feeling I had. We entered the Tomb and the Father went away. I could feel a heavenly presence for the first time. I just bowed down and touched the Tomb and we came out of the tomb. I felt as if my journey was complete –a feeling of fulfillment and joy inside me.