By Dan Zarlenga, Missouri Department of Conservation
Photo caption: Your used Christmas tree can find new life after the holidays as a backyard habitat for wildlife. Photo: Missouri Department of Conservation
A live Christmas tree brings its own special touch of festivity to the holiday season. The presence of a live tree, and its unmistakable scent, evokes a hint of nature indoors. But how did this beloved tradition get started?
The Christmas tree tradition truly has its roots in nature and goes back well before the holiday itself. The Winter Solstice occurs around December 20. This is the day when the sun reaches the southernmost point in its annual path through the sky. Even though this is the shortest day and longest night of the year, it signals the lengthening days to come, and the eventual arrival of spring. For many cultures of antiquity, from the Vikings to the Celts, ancient Egypt to Rome, this was the time to celebrate the triumph of light over darkness. Part of that celebration often involved the use of greenery and especially evergreens. Decorating with boughs that remained green throughout the year symbolized rebirth and eternal life.
Germany is where the Christmas tree traditions more familiar to us began. History shows that people were bringing decorated evergreen trees indoors by the 16th Century. As German people expanded, the tradition was spread to other places. Even as late as the 19th Century though, Christmas trees were still pretty uncommon. The earliest records of evergreen trees being cut for display in this country date from the German community in 1820s Pennsylvania. But it was the queen of England who made the tradition really take hold.
Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, was German. Victoria urged Albert to put up a holiday tree in Buckingham Palace like the ones he knew from his youth. Sketches of the Royal family and the tree were published in the December 1848 Illustrated London News. Thanks to the influence of the popular queen, the tradition ignited like wildfire and became ultra fashionable as England and East Coast American Society clamored to follow her example.
From there the practice of the putting up Christmas trees grew through the late 1800s and early 20th Century into the tradition we know today.
If you choose to carry on this tradition in your own home, you’ll be supporting a natural practice and the local Christmas tree farming industry. Such trees are a renewable resource compared to plastic-based artificial trees. For every evergreen tree cut, more are planted in its place. And while they grow, these trees help provide oxygen and sequester carbon in the atmosphere.
After the holidays, your used tree can bring more gifts to nature. Try cutting the boughs and placing them in gardens to help buffer winter cold and frosts. Consider putting the tree out in your backyard or back 40 where it can provide winter cover for birds and wildlife. As it decomposes, its nutrients will be returned to the Earth. Many municipalities will also chip used Christmas trees into mulch and make it available to residents for landscaping needs. Submerged in lakes and ponds, these trees even create fish cover and habitat.
A live Christmas tree comes from nature and is reborn through the nurturing power it returns to the landscape. Just as our ancestors knew, evergreens truly can fulfill the promise of eternal life.