Erecting a Christmas tree in your living room and decorating it with garlands and balls as December 25 approaches is a well-established tradition in our country and in many other countries. This custom dates back to antiquity, before the Christian era.
Already in antiquity, evergreen branches were used as decorations during pagan celebrations of the winter solstice. As they kept their green needles during the winter, conifers symbolized the victory of life and light over the death and darkness associated with this dark time of the year.
In the Middle Ages, around the 13the and the fourteenthe century, in Europe, the fir tree embodied the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, mentioned in the Book of Genesis, in sketches played on the evening of December 24 on the forecourt – of the church – whose etymology designates paradise, and which, therefore, was intended to be a representation of the earthly paradise. These sketches depicted Adam and Eve who succumbed to the trap of temptation set by the devil by biting into the apple of this tree and who then found themselves driven out of paradise. “We hung red apples from the branches of the fir tree, which symbolized the forbidden fruit. And this is how the green [du sapin] and the red [des pommes] have become the colors of Christmas over time,” says Yvan Fortier, ethnohistorian at Parks Canada.
“Then, little by little, the fir tree will enter the churches, and we will hang something else from its branches, like forgetfulness, that is to say unconsecrated hosts which were sometimes rolled in the shape of a cone, and paper flowers,” he continues.
Towards the XVe and the XVIe century, in the Germanic countries, the fir enters the houses. In Alsace, in particular, a fir tree is cut and placed on a table placed in the center of the common room, or in the center of the living room in slightly more bourgeois families, where it sits enthroned over the assembly.
So it’s not big trees that we cut down. One chooses a tree of one meter to one meter and a half at the most, which one fixes to a wooden cross or which one plants in a bucket of sand. It is decorated with edible foodstuffs, such as candies and cookies in the shape of characters or geometric figures that are hung on the branches, and garlands made up of fruit inserted on a thread. “At Christmas, we distributed these treats, hence the term “tree stripping” which we kept in our vocabulary. The gift-bearing tree will be kept until the 1940s,” Mr. Fortier points out.
In the XVIe and in the XVIIe century, small candles are added and placed on the branches of the fir tree. The tree is lit to “celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ, whom the Church has always identified as being the light of the world which redeems the original sin [c’est-à-dire la désobéissance d’Adam et Ève]and which dispels darkness, or death, in a way,” explains the historian.
What we now call the Christmas tree was more like the “holiday tree” because it remained the center of attention for 12 days. At the time, Christmas began on Nativity Day and ended on Epiphany, or King’s Day, on January 6. “It was only in the nineteenthe century that, in the Anglo-Saxon world, everything has been concentrated on December 24 or 25,” says Mr. Fortier.
But it was in the middle of the XIXe century that the Christmas tree made its mark on the European population, then on this side of the Atlantic. First in France, where the German-born Princess Hélène Louise Élisabeth de Mecklenburg-Schwerin — who is the wife of the son of Louis-Philippe, King of the French from 1830 to 1848 — introduced the practice of the tree to the German at the Court of France. “This custom will first spread fairly quickly among the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, before spreading to the entire population,” notes Mr. Fortier.
A little later, in England, Queen Victoria’s cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha — who was also of German origin and whom Victoria married in 1840 — in turn introduced this practice at Windsor Castle. In 1848, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha summoned the magazine The Illustrated London News to portray the royal family, namely Victoria, Albert and their children, on either side of a German fir tree, on a table, laden with candy boxes, small colored candles and small gifts. This illustration, which will make the front page of the magazine, launches the fashion for the Christmas tree which is gradually gaining the whole world. This image will be copied two years later in the Godey’s Ladies Book At New York. The publication then helps to breathe the tradition into the United States.
The Christmas tree had probably already appeared in some houses in eastern America at the end of the 18th century.e century, in particular by the German mercenaries that the British had hired to suppress the American War of Independence (1775-1783).
“These German immigrants, about 2000 of whom finally settled in Quebec, may have played a role in the introduction of the Christmas tree in Quebec, but so did the English and the Americans. It could have come from multiple sources, ”believes Mr. Fortier. But one thing is certain, it is only in the XXe century that this tradition will spread to the entire population. “Even in the 1920s, only one or two out of five families put up a Christmas tree in their home. It was only between the two wars, during the famous “time of peace”, that the custom would spread to all families. And this time, we are gradually abandoning the German fir tree in favor of the very large fir tree, going from the floor to the ceiling, as we are used to seeing in our forests here, ”says the historian.
The decorations also evolve. From 1917, insurance companies will strongly advise abandoning the lighting of the tree with candles and replacing them with the electric garland, which has just made its appearance.
The US market sources its supplies from Germany, notably Dresden for figures such as angels in very shiny colored cardboard, as well as Lauscha, a small town in the Sonneberg region, renowned for its family workshops of glassworks that make blown glass decorations representing fruit to put on the branches of the Christmas tree. “The FW Woolworth company began to make massive imports from Lauscha, where the artisanal production was exported throughout Europe and America”, specifies Mr. Fortier, who unearthed in Charlesbourg, near Quebec, a magnificent cobalt blue ball made in Lauscha in 1870.
“These balls had much thicker walls than those of today [qui sont pour la plupart fabriquées en Chine] says the collector who recreated the decor of a Victorian Christmas in the home of George-Étienne Cartier, one of the Fathers of Confederation, on Notre-Dame Street in Montreal.
Today, the Christmas tree must henceforth be called the “holiday tree”, because it is erected all over the world, including in countries without a Christian tradition such as China, Japan and certain countries of Africa.