The first written record of a Christmas tree comes from the year 1510, in Riga, Latvia. According to the record, local men of the town decorated a pine tree with fake roses, danced around it for a night, and then set fire to it. The rose was considered to be a symbol of the Virgin Mary. Other records point to the Christmas tree originating in Germany. Christians brought trees into their houses and decorated them with colored paper, roses and apples. Popular legend holds that Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer, was the first one to put lighted candles on Christmas trees.

While coming home on a dark winter night close to Christmastime, he stopped in his tracks and marveled at the way stars shone through the branches of a small fir tree just outside his home. He replicated the effect by placing lighted candles in a tree he cut down and brought inside. While this is doubted as to the literal veracity of its truth, most records do point to the Christmas tree phenomenon starting in Germany. In fact, the first Christmas trees were brought to America by German settlers in the 1800s. Not long afterwards, Christmas trees started to change from table-top size to room-sized.

Early Christmas trees used to have fairies instead of angels. Fairies were thought to be good spirits that brought good luck to the household. Horns and bells were hung on the branches of the tree to ward off evil spirits. The sound of the bells was thought to frighten them. In Poland, Christmas trees used to be decorated with angels, peacocks and stars. A longstanding tradition in Sweden is to decorate trees with hand-crafted wooden ornaments as well as straw figures of children and animals. The Ukrainians have a live spider complete with web in their trees for good luck.An old Ukrainian legend states that an old women who had nothing to decorate her tree with woke up and saw that the spider webs on her tree had been turned to silver by the rising sun.

In early Colonial America, the Puritans banned Christmas trees because of their supposed pagan origins. William Bradford, the second governor of the Pilgrims, wrote that he tried his best to stamp out “pagan mockery” of the Christmas observance, severely penalizing any violators. Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of Commonwealth England, preached against Christmas carols because of their “heathen influences”.

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