A natural Christmas tree is made of an evergreen conifer like spruce, pine or fir while artificial trees are made out of materials like plastic. Hundreds of years ago, the ever green fir tree was used to celebrate both Christian and pagan (non Christian) Winter Festivals.
The exact date of using fir trees as Christmas trees cannot be pin pointed. It is believed that the custom began over a 1,000 years ago in Northern Europe. In those early days, in many parts of Northern Europe cherry or hawthorne trees or their branches were used as Christmas trees. People planted these in pots and brought them into the house in the hope they would flower at Christmas time. People who could not afford to buy natural plants made pyramids from wood and decorated them to look like Christmas trees.
Estonia and Latvia compete for the honour of being the first to have a tree at Christmas and New Year celebrations.Tallinin, the Estonian Capital had a tree in 1441 and Riga, the Latvian capital claims to having had one in 1550. Riga’s town square has a plaque engraved with the words ‘ The First New Year’s Tree in Riga in 1510 ‘ in eight languages.
The Christmas Tree as we know it today may have been first brought to the house by the great German Christian reformer, Martin Luther King in the 16th century.
According to the story, in 1536 Martin Luther King was walking in a pine wood near his home. When he looked up he had seen hundreds of stars glinting jewel like through the trees – a very beautiful sight. Luther was so struck by this sight, that he went home and and told his children about it saying that the sight reminded him of Jesus and how he left the stars of heaven to come to Earth as a human baby for our sake. He then brought a tree home and decorated it in remebrance of it. Martin Luther is credited as the first person to have decorated a Christmas tree with lighted candles.
Another story says that St. Boniface of Crediton ( a village in Devon in UK) went to Germany to preach to the pagan German tribes there and convert them to Christianity. He had come across a group of people worshipping a tree. Angered by this St. Boniface had chopped the tree down and was amazed when a young fir tree sprang up from the roots of the old oak tree.
He took this as a sign of Christian faith and his followers decorated the fir tree with candles so that Boniface could preach to the pagans at night.
There is a also a lovely German legend about the Christ child and the origin of the Christmas tree. A poor German forester and his family were warming themselves around the fire on a cold Christmas Eve night. There was a sudden knock at the door and when the forester opened the door there was a poor little boy lost and alone. The kindly forester and his wife took the little boy into the house fed, washed, clothed and put him to sleep with their youngest son.
On Christmas morning the family awakened to the glorious sounds of a choir of angels and they found to their amazement the lost little boy was Jesus, the Christ Child.
The Christ child went into the front garden and broke a fir branch and gave it to the family as a thank you gift for looking after him. So, ever since then, people remember that night by bringing a Christmas tree into their homes.