why do we have christmas trees?

Question

i'm pretty sure there weren't any in bethlehem, so where did this tradition come from?

Answer 1

In the cold winters of old pagan Europe, the evergreen tree was the only plant that could survive the harsh winters. It became a symbol of everlasting life, of the ability to survive harsh times, of hope and perserverence.

So it's an important enough symbol to have survived the absorbtion into Christian traditions.

Answer 2

It's a pagan tradition, coming from the Yule celebrations in England and the Nordic/Germanic countries. It's a celebration of light triumphing over darkness (which is why it's a midwinter tradition - that is when the hours of daylight are the shortest) and of faith that the snows will melt and give way to spring. Christianity has "borrowed" quite a lot of pagan traditions and wiggled them around to suit Christian themes.

Answer 3

Christmas trees originated from the pagan tradition of celebrating Yule (the winter solstice). Many current Christian traditions were borrowed from pagan religions, as they were here way before most modern ones.

Answer 4

this one is of Celtic decent.stated with the pagans in England and parts of Ireland the pagans thought it miraculous that any living thing could survive winters so they were worshipers of life often they would dance around the trees and have feast to celebrate them well the English hated them so they cut them down and put them in there yards and lit them up with candles so the pagans could see them die. it was very cruel,as the english moved this way to the americas they brought the tree celibration with them soon the christains adopted it into there holidays just as they have with about every thing eles they stole from the celts.trees were to be honored for there abilitys to live and come back to life afer the win=ter celest.

Answer 5

Christmas trees were introduced by vacuum cleaner manufacturer Hoover.

Their marketing department realised that people would need one of their products to remove all the fallen needles from the trees. Clever.

Answer 6

We have to have some place to hang the ornaments. Santa
Claus, Easter bunny, tooth fairy, Halloween, etc. are fun stuff
that somebody made up and the rest of us sheep just indulge,
Just like religious stuff. Different people all over the world make
up their own stuff and probably it is intended to break up the
monotony of life.

Answer 7

This tradition came from the guy who invented baubles,christmas lights and little fairies dressed like Barbie

Answer 8

The Christmas tree is often explained as a Christianization of the ancient pagan idea that the evergreen tree represents a celebration of the renewal of life. In Roman mosaics from what is today Tunisia, showing the mythic triumphant return from India of the Greek god of wine and male fertility, Dionysus (dubbed by some modern scholars as a life-death-rebirth deity), the god carries a tapering coniferous tree. Medieval legends, nevertheless, tended to concentrate more on the miraculous "flowering" of trees at Christmas time. A branch of flowering Glastonbury thorn is still sent annually for the Queen's Christmas table in the United Kingdom.


Taiwanese aboriginals, tutored by Christian missionaries, celebrate with trees (Cunninghamia lanceolata) outside their homes.Patron trees (for example, the Irminsul, Thor's Oak and the figurative Yggdrasil) held special significance for the ancient Germanic tribes, appearing throughout historic accounts as sacred symbols and objects. Among early Germanic tribes the Yule tradition was celebrated by sacrificing male animals and slaves by suspending them on the branches of trees. According to Adam of Bremen, in Scandinavia the pagan kings sacrificed nine males of each species at the sacred groves every ninth year. According to one legend, Saint Boniface attempted to introduce the idea of trinity to the pagan tribes using the cone-shaped evergreen trees because of their triangular appearance.

The modern custom, however, although likely related, cannot be proven to be directly descended from pagan tradition. It can be traced to 16th century Germany; Ingeborg Weber-Keller (Marburg professor of European ethnology) identified as the earliest reference a Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 which reports how a small fir was decorated with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers, and erected in the guild-house, for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas day. Another early reference is from Basel, where the taylor apprentices carried around town a tree decorated with apples and cheese in 1597. The city of Riga, Latvia claims to be home of the first holiday tree, an octagonal plaque in the town square reads "The First New Years Tree in Riga in 1510", in eight different languages. During the 17th century, the custom entered family homes. One Strasbourg priest, Johann Konrad Dannerhauer, complains about the custom as distracting from the word of God. By the early 18th century, the custom had become common in towns of the upper Rhineland, but it had not yet spread to rural areas. Wax candles are attested from the late 18th century. The Christmas tree remained confined to the upper Rhineland for a relatively long time. It was regarded as a Protestant custom by the Catholic majority along the lower Rhine, and was spread there only by Prussian officials who were moved there in the wake of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the early 19th century, the custom became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far as Russia. Princess Henrietta von Nassau-Weilburg introduced the Christmas tree to Vienna in 1816, and the custom spread across Austria in the following years. In France, the first Christmas tree was introduced in 1840 by the duchess of Orleans.

In Britain Prince Albert is credited with having introduced the Christmas tree, but it was in fact Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. However, Prince Albert did much to popularise it.

Answer 9

Queen Victoria had 1 so i heard.

Answer 10

Druid tradition, i do believe??
Bugger all to do with witches.
PS.
No offence meant phaylynn, don't start making dolls and sticking pins in,Ive got enough aces and pains.