Is the Christmas tree considered a religious object or just part of the Holiday spirit?

Question

Didn't it start in Germany ?

Answer 1

The Christmas tree is one of the most popular and cherished Christmas customs. Each year, 35-40 million live trees are purchased and decorated in the United States alone.

What was the origin of the Christmas tree? As much as I would like to embrace as fact the oft- quoted story that Martin Luther was the first to set up a Christmas tree (or at least a lighted one), I cannot -- for the story is pure legend. Many years of intensive Luther scholarship has turned up nothing to support it. There is scholarly consensus, however, that the Christmas tree originated in Germany. Indeed, the earliest record of an evergreen tree being used and decorated (but without lights) for Christmas is 1521 in the German region of Alsace. Another useful description has been found among the notes of an unknown resident of Strasbourg in 1605, who writes that "At Christmas they set up fir trees in the parlors at Strasburg and hang thereon roses cut of many- coloured paper, apples, wafers, gold-foil, sweets . . ." Some fifty years later (about 1650) the great Lutheran theologian Johann Dannhauer wrote in his The Milk of the Catechism that "the Christmas or fir tree, which people set up in their houses, hang with dolls and sweets, and afterwards shake and deflower. . . Whence comes this custom I know not; it is child's play . . . Far better were it to point the children to the spiritual cedar-tree, Jesus Christ."

Some other interesting facts about the Christmas tree, are:

The first retail Christmas stand was set up by Mark Carr in New York City in 1851;

Franklin Pierce was the first president to introduce the Christmas tree to the White House in 1856 for a group of Washington Sunday School children;

The first lighted Christmas tree in public was in Boston in 1912;19;

The first national Christmas Tree was lighted in the year 1923 on the White House lawn by President Calvin Coolidge.

Answer 2

Some have traced the Christmas tree back at least as far as the Prophet Jeremiah who wrote the book Jeremiah in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Opposition to the Christmas tree was strong in past centuries. The early Christian Church in the third century strictly prohibited the decoration of their houses with evergreen boughs. The decorated Christmas tree only caught on in the mid-19th century. Modern-day opposition continues: some condemn the Christmas tree because they believe it to be a Christian symbol; others condemn it because they believe -- incorrectly -- that the custom of cutting down a tree, erecting it in the home and decorating it is a Pagan custom. For many people today, it is primarily as a secular symbol of hope for the New Year and the future return of warmth to the earth.

The Christmas tree tradition dates back to Western Germany in the 16th century. They were called "Paradeisbaum" (paradise trees) and were brought into homes to celebrate the annual Feast of Adam and Eve on DEC-24. 4 They were first brought to America by German immigrants about 1700. Christmas trees became popular among the general population about 1850. 2

President Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) arranged to have the first Christmas tree in the White House, during the mid-1850's. President Calvin Coolidge (1885-1933) started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923. 4

Today, the Christmas Tree has become accepted by Christians, by people of other faiths, and for those who do not follow an organized religion. It has become a popular late-December tradition and part of our present-day culture.

Answer 3

In Pagan traditions the Christmas tree or Yule log has an important religious significance. The tree has been borrowed by Christians but they don't really know what it is there for anymore. They simply follow the rituals of those they would call heathens without thinking. Which is not necesarilly bad because christmas trees are cool and the more we have of them the more Pagan Power goes to the Wise Ones.

Answer 4

At Yule festival Pagans used to decorate trees with the inner eds of dead animals, but they did not kill the tree to do this.Trees are not a X'tian symbols nor is the cross for that matter or the fish. X tian steal things from the old religions, but are not educated enough to know history or choose to take no notice of History.

Blessed and Merry be enjoy Yule

Answer 5

I don't know how it started. But I know that today it has become a a more of a secular thing. Personally we have a christmas tree but we definitely do not celebrate christmas with a religious trend in mind. For us it's about family and togetherness.

Answer 6

The Christmas tree is not a religious symbol. Martin Luther King put on a little tree with lights to show his children how the stars twinkle.

Answer 7

There's nothing Christian about the Christmas tree. Not 100% about this, but I think it's a holdover from our Irish roots, when the pagans would use it as a part of their solstice celebration.

Answer 8

I don't think it is religious in any way.

Unless you take the song 'O Christmas Tree' seriously and, like, idolize it.

Answer 9

There is nothing "religious" about Christmas as we know it today... all of that changed YEARS ago...to our own demise!
I think all of the religious aspects went out the window with all the commercialism when retailers found a way to make us spend MONEY!!!

Answer 10

Chistmas is actually a pegan holiday,christens converted most holidays from pegan to there own christ was not born on dec 25