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TOPIC: Christmas Tree Traditions
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/ab8a51e3068dfa4e?hl=en
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== 1 of 3 ==
Date: Fri, Dec 14 2007 11:04 am
From: James Parton


ENTS,

How can we let Christmas pass without discussing Christmas Trees!?
Here is a bit of info I found while researching the topic.

The decorated Christmas tree can be traced back to the ancient Romans
who during their winter festival decorated trees with small pieces of
metal during Saturnalia, a winter festival in honor of Saturnus, the
god of agriculture.

An evergreen, the Paradise tree, was decorated with apples as a symbol
of the feast of Adam and Eve held on December 24th during the middle
ages.

Christmas trees were sold in Alsace in 1531. Alsace was at that time a
part of Germany. Today it is part of France. The trees were sold at
local markets and set up in homes undecorated.

In the Ammerschweier in Alsace there was an ordinance that stated no
person "shall have for Christmas more than one bush of more than eight
shoe lengths."

Sixteenth century folklore credited Martin Luther as being the first
to decorate an indoor tree. After a walk through a forest of
evergreens with shining stars overhead, Luther tried to describe the
experience to his family and showed them by bringing a tree into their
home and decorating it with candles. Some historians state that the
first evidence of a lighted tree appeared more than a century after
Martin Luther's death in 1546.

The oldest record of a decorated Christmas tree came from a 1605 diary
found in Strasburg, France (Germany in 1605). The tree was decorated
with paper roses, apples and candies.

In Austria & Germany during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
the tops of evergreens were cut and hung upside down in a living room
corner. They were decorated with apples, nuts and strips of red paper.

The first record of Christmas trees in America was for children in the
German Moravian Church's settlement in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
Christmas 1747. Actual trees were not decorated, but wooden pyramids
covered with evergreen branches were decorated with candles.

The custom of the Christmas tree was introduced in the United States
during the War of Independence by Hessian troops. An early account
tells of a Christmas tree set up by American soldiers at Fort
Dearborn, Illinois, the site of Chicago, in 1804. Most other early
accounts in the United States were among the German settlers in
eastern Pennsylvania.

In 1834, Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, was credited with
bringing the first Christmas tree to Windsor Castle for the Royal
Family. Some historians state that in actuality Queen Charlotte,
Victoria's grandmother, recalled that a Christmas tree was in the
Queen's lodge at Windsor on Christmas Day in 1800.

Charles Minnegrode introduced the custom of decorating trees in
Williamsburg, Virginia in 1842.

By 1850, the Christmas tree had become fashionable in the eastern
states. Until this time, it had been considered a quaint foreign
custom.

Mark Carr brought trees from the Catskills to the streets of New York
in 1851, and opened the first retail Christmas tree lot in the United
States.

Franklin Pierce was the first president to introduce the Christmas
tree to the White House in 1856 for a group of Washington Sunday
School children. The first national Christmas Tree was lighted in the
year 1923 on the White House lawn by President Calvin Coolidge.

Merry Christmas!: James Parton.

== 2 of 3 ==
Date: Fri, Dec 14 2007 12:37 pm
From: dbhguru


James hi,


And merry Christmas to you. Absolutely fascinating account of the origins of the Christmas tree. You're on a roll. Please continue down the hill.

Bob

== 3 of 3 ==
Date: Fri, Dec 14 2007 8:48 pm
From: James Parton


~Laughing~ I will roll like a snowball!

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TOPIC: Christmas Trees
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/690e38de86c9cc56?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Sun, Dec 16 2007 5:55 pm
From: Beth


ENTS,

I bought my Christmas Tree this afternoon and after dinner I strung
the lights around it, hung all the ornaments and garland, and threw on
the pastic icicles. I placed the tree skirt on and set up two mangers
and city. I plugged in the city and one of the mangers(the other on
has no lights) and went to plug in the lights. There I was laying on
my back under the tree looking at the female end of the extention cord
and the female end of the lights! After all that I have the lights on
the tree backwards!

I am going to run a another extention cord up the trunk of the tree to
get the male end of the lights.

Beth