Oh, Christmas Tree ~ the Fifth Day of Christmas

All Soul's church Christmas tree, 2019

One of my most vivid memories from childhood, and I have a terrible memory, is of the excitement I felt when our artificial green & silver tinsel Christmas tree with metal fold-out arms came down from the loft, along with boxes of ancient and familiar decorations. They had their own special smell that I have never found anywhere else. My favourite decoration was a pipe cleaner Father Christmas but there were also incredibly fragile glass baubles that I didn't dare to touch.

I remember the tree being decorated, and then that magical moment when the lights went on and a Christmas wonderland suddenly appeared! I used to sit cross-legged in front of it for hour upon hour, absolutely enchanted. To me, it was every bit as beautiful as the 'Tree of Souls' in the film 'Avatar'. I remember being quite shocked when our first family Christmas tree reappeared years later, having been replaced by a much more realistic (but less magical) tree, and I saw how small it actually was.

Above is a photo of my mum, probably before I was born, drying her hair in our old house with a quite lovely Christmas tree by the telly. I remember that hair dryer. That fascinated me too, and it always smelled of burning! This looks like a real tree, which I don't remember having at all. Our tree was more like the one below, but green. We were sophisticated like that! Happy times.

1960s artificial Christmas tree 

I am writing this on the Fifth Day of Christmas & four days ago, on Boxing Day, the Reverend Kate Bottley posted an image of a, still green and vibrant, 'real' Christmas tree propped up next to a bin. She commented that now is the time for driving around and rescuing lonely, discarded too soon, trees by taking them home. I always feel sad when anyone says, often with some pride, that they have taken their decorations down on 26th December, but in the case of a tree this seems particulaly sorrowful. I am so glad that there are Christmas tree rescuers abroad.

There is so much that we do now because 'that's just what you do'. We throw coins into water, cross our fingers, and engage in all manner of superstitions without knowing why; retaining the behaviour but losing the meaning. And so, of course, we have a tree at Christmas. It's 'just what you do'. I find our continued enacting of these superstitions affirming; what we once knew is just under the surface waiting to be refound, and so it might re-enchant our relationship with these magical trees to know that our ancestors have been bringing evergreens inside in winter for millennia.

Hedgehermitage evergreen wreath, 2018

Evergreen wreaths and garlands symbolised eternal life in ancient Egypt, China, and in the Middle East. During the Roman festival of Saturnalia houses were decorated with evergreens, and the people of Northern Europe held trees in the highest honour. That they were revered is evidenced by the story of 8th Century Anglo-Saxon missionary St Boniface felling Donar's, or Thor's, Oak; a tree sacred to the Germanic Pagans. The tree was said to have fallen in the shape of a cross and the wood then used to build a church dedicated to St Peter; a desecration indeed for so many venerable trees to have been cut down in the name of any god. But also a telling of how deeply loved trees were, how a people could be broken by taking their trees. For example, I remember only too well that one of the first acts of the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government in 2010 was to begin selling off our national forests to huge public outcry, which I'm sure shocked even them.

It may seem strange then that Christmas trees have become such an important part of the Christian feast of Christmas. But, as we explored during Celtic Advent, there are often older and deeper tides at work. We could learn to trust them.

Our modern Christmas trees appear to have originated during the German Renaissance of the 15th and 16th Centuries, the first dated depiction being from 1576. They are sometimes linked with Protestant reformer Martin Luther, who is said to have been the first person to put lighted candles on an evergreen tree ~ possibly in an act of one upmanship against the beautiful cribs that were to be found in Catholic churches. As a species, we are so drawn by beauty.

By the early 18th Century Christmas trees had become popular in towns of the Upper Rhineland, but not yet in rural areas. Because the Lower Rhine was mostly Catholic, & Christmas trees were considered Protestant, it took a very long time for them to spread further.

It wasn't until the latter half of the 19th Century that the custom became established elsewhere. By this time, Christmas trees had become an expression of German culture & of Gemütlichkeit (warmth, friendliness, and good cheer, much like the Scandinavian 'hygge') amongst those who had set sail for other lands. We all need to take home with us in one form or another. Even so, the decorated tree remained a preserve of the nobility and upper classes. Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg introduced the Christmas tree to Vienna in 1816. By 1840 the custom had spread to France. And Hans Christian Andersen published 'The Fir-Tree', a fairytale about a little tree being cut down for Christmas, in Denmark in 1844.

These first Christmas trees were originally decorated with coloured paper roses, apples, wafers, sweetmeats, and tinsel. I was stunned to learn that tinsel was invented in Nuremburg as long ago as 1610 and was originally made from extruded silver in order to enhance the flickering of candles.

Marcel Rieder, 1898, from Wikipedia

Modern Christmas trees have been said to symbolise the 'Tree of Paradise', or the Tree of Life, which once appeared in mystery plays given on Christmas Eve. This was also a day dedicated to Adam & Eve, and so the trees were decorated with apples to represent the Garden of Eden and its forbidden fruit, and with wafers to symbolise the redemption found in the Eucharist. Soon, these trees were taken into homes and the rosy apples replaced with red baubles.

In the British Isles the tradition of decorating homes and churches with evergreens at Christmas was long-established, but it was unheard of to decorate an entire tree until the 1840s. Our royal family had been doing so since 1800 when George III's German-born wife, Charlotte, provided one for a children's party. In 1848 their popularity spread when an engraving of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their children enjoying Christmas around their tree was published.

Queen Victoria & family in 1848, Wikipedia

However, as in the Rhineland, it took a very long time for the idea of a decorated Christmas tree spread here. They remained something that only the well-to-do considered. That this had changed by the 20th Century is clear as, in 1906, a charity was set up to ensure that poor children in the slums of London could at least see a Christmas tree. By the 1920s everyone had them.

'Glad Jul' by Viggo Johansen, 1891

The Christmas tree's relationship with mainstream religion has been more difficult. In Russia they were banned after the October Revolution of 1917 and only returned as a secular symbol of New Year in 1935. By that time the star on top of the tree had become, not a symbol of the Star of Bethlehem, but of the Red Star of Communism.

Although the 'Hanging of the Greens has been a tradition in churches for many years, it wasn't until the beginning of the 20th Century that Christmas trees began to appear. Sometimes these take the form of a 'Chrismon Tree', which is a Christianised version of the traditional tree decorated with clear lights and gold & white symbols of Christ; a dove, a Celtic cross, a shepherd's crook.

During the 'Hanging of the Greens' Biblical passages and other readings are employed to explain the Christian significance of the holly, mistletoe, tree, and any other decorations; as though being part of the Earth and the season wasn't enough. No doubt this is to avoid accusations of syncretism; the merging of different religious traditions or schools of thought.

Personally, I have never quite understood the problem with syncretism, religious or otherwise. It's only challenge can be to those who have a power base to protect by controlling the thoughts and actions of their group of believers, which is all the more reason to embrace it.

The accusation of 'syncretism' is often used as an insult to imply that one is in some way weak willed or 'impure' in one's beliefs. It is seen as a betrayal, rather than as a sign of a healthy living system. And, of course, critics of syncretism must assume that their own chosen faith was originally discrete, or separate, something which is virtually impossible. No, like life on this planet, religion grows on an ever-expanding, contracting, and refining web of becoming, with filaments that weave, separate, and reweave, in ever more beautiful patterns if they are allowed to. Much like the roots of a tree; grounding, exploring, nourishing.

Perhaps it was my own long contemplation of our little family Christmas tree as a child that led me to this strange path of faith that I am on now.  If so, I am grateful. My prayer for the year ahead is that we will all fall back in love with trees, and that they will lead us to a way of being more deeply rooted in ourselves and in a wild and holy diversity of belief.

And perhaps next Christmas there will be fewer trees abandoned by Boxing Day.

References:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree

https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrismon_tree

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_of_the_greens

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinsel

https://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_lifestyle/retro_christmas/retro_christmas.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/the-silver-christmas-tree-an-icon-of-space-age-kitsch-turns-60/2019/12/13/

Syncretism ~

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_syncretism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism