History of the Christmas Tree- Roots and All!
I was driving down the road the other day with my little guy, our 7 year old miracle child. We noticed some people standing on the side of the road with signs around them that were saying that celebrating Christmas was evil. That Christmas trees were of the devil and idol worshipping.
The greatest part of homeschooling is you can turn these situations into learning times. As my son was asking me questions I said, " I don't know all the answers so let's get home and we can do a research project on where Christmas trees come from and why do we celebrate Christmas besides the obvious." We then turned this into a unit study on the 'Symbols of Christmas."
We are not quite finished with the lapbook on this unit study- when we are- you will sure to see the finished project!
We can be very proud to make a claim as part of our ancestral heritage about the Christmas Tree. Although it is widely believed that Martin Luther was the first one to use an Evergreen Tree as a Christmas Tree, actually the first Christmas tree was in Riga Latvia- my mother's birth place- around the year 1510. There is even an engraved monument in the street marking the place on which the first Christmas tree stood. Although Latvians were pageans they easily converted to the Lutheran Christian religion. As with many cultures many of their new Christian ceremonies were mingles with their originial pagean beliefs. The Winter Solstace or Yule was the event at the same time as Christmas.
Photos courtesy of FirstChristmastree.com.
I posted a really cute video below that shares a little bit of Riga Latvia with you. It is put on by Latvia's tourism department. The big claim to fame in this video is that Riga is home to the very first Christmas Tree and from there the Christmas tree spread all over the world.
You can read more about Latvia through my Latvian real estate posts regarding our court battle to save our Latvian Property that we own from scumbags and crooks who are trying to steal it away from its' rightful heirs, my siblings and myself. At the end of that post there is the entire series of links to posts that tell the chronology of our court process to get our land back.
Here is a post I wrote about my mother who was born in Riga Latvia and you can see what Latvian people look like- hee hee- just look at me and my mother. We are very 'Latvian' looking. Latvians claim a nordic/ Viking history. Nestor calls me his 'Viking Princess'. Of course, that means also, to not mess with a Viking:).
The pageans used Evergreen trees in their homes during the Winter months to remind them that soon crops would grow again. The lighting of the trees with candles came around the same period and it is the story of Martin Luther walking into the woods in northern Germany and saw the stars reflections sparkling on the Evergreen trees. When he went home he added candles to an Evergreen tree and placed it in his home to remind him of the light of Christ.
My mother always had real candles on her Christmas tree in our home every year. Come to think of it, we were very blessed to not have our tree catch on fire! This was a tradition she brought with her from Latvia. In Riga, they have a huge celebration in the town center lighting the Christmas tree and today they even have fireworks on the night of lighting up the first Christmas tree.
The German immigrants that moved to Pennsylvania are the ones who brought the Christmas Tree tradition to America in the 17th Century.
It is not strange at all that it took so long for the Christmas Tree to come to America because to the New England Puritans (pilgrims), Christmas was very sacred. The Pilgrims' second governor- William Bradford- attempted to get rid of all symbols or connections to pagean ceremonies and beliefs and you were penalized if you were caught doing such. Oliver Cromwell preached against any type of heathen traditions including celebrating Christmas in a joyful manner, no singing of Christmas carols, no decorating trees or anything else that would make Christmas appear not to be so sacred.
So now we understand why those people were standing on the side of the road exercising their free speech rights. Their doing so also created for us a really cool learning experience and we came away both myself, mom the teacher at the age of 50 along with my son at the age of 7- learning a lot of new history! How cool is that! Oh, and just so you know, we will continue to celebrate the birth of Christ Jesus on Christmas with Christmas trees, decorations, singing and having a joyous time.
We wish you a very Happy New Year! Thanks for sharing!
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