You could say the Christmas tree was long in the making. Even long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter.
Just as we decorate our homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient folks hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many places, it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.
Germany is credited with starting the modern version of this tradition in the 16th century when devout Christians started bringing decorated trees into their homes.
Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It's also widely believed that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.
Interestingly, even in the 19th-century, most Americans found Christmas trees an oddity.
The first record of one being on display dates back to the 1830s to the German settlers of Pennsylvania; although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier. The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.
I wonder what people back then would've said about Julia's family tree. Maybe it would have made them come around sooner?
