O Tannenbaum -- Christmas Trees

Christmas trees have a fascinating history. The way we decorate them now, or how Germans used to light candles and deck the tree with those (not so fire safe) didn't evolve till later. Their origin is quite interesting though.

But to understand, we'll have to go back to 350 A.D. when Pope Julius 1 declared December 25th as the day Christendom would celebrate Christ's birth. Christianity was legalized by this time with an edict in 313 A.D. by Constantine. After the Council of Nicea Christianity was at least more unified for Constantine's empire, so Christianity was becoming more of a force. The Romans were celebrating the winter solstice on the 25th of December with great feasts. Some think the Pope set this as the day to celebrate Christ's birth to make it easier for pagan Roman's to transition to Christianity -- kind of the idea of "hey, if you join, you can still have a big party on the 25th, but now it will be to celebrate Christ's birth, not the sun God Saturn."

Over the years, and especially during what is called "the dark ages", paradise plays became popular in conjunction with celebrating Christ's birth. A Paradise play essentially depicted the fall of Adam and Eve, and then celebrated the following day how Christ was born to redeem us from the fall. Now, you can understand that if you cut down a maple tree for a prop of the Tree from the Garden of Eden, you'd only get a few acts in before all your leaves were gone. So, they cut down evergreens. They decorated them with apples to symbolize the forbidden fruit.

Well, some actors/actresses took their roles a little too seriously and some lewdness apparently was a problem, so the Pope banned the Paradise plays. People had become so accustom to celebrating "the feast of Adam and Eve" on December 24th, that they just cut down their own 'Paradise trees' and decorated them. They apparently decorated them with apples and with wafers (symbolic of the sacrament) so that the tree represented not only the Fall of Mankind, but Redemption of Mankind through Christ. Other decorations evolved over the years.

Current symbolism behind the Christmas tree:

Evergreen: green symbolizes 'hope' in a lot of ancient artwork. In the Convent in Celle, Germany which I visited on my mission, when it depicted Christ's resurrection, Christ was wearing green, and had a green halo like aura about Him. It's possible that it represented hope because it is the color of many living plants, and evergreen trees would be pretty nice to look upon during the cold and barren winters.
Symbolizes the Fall of Mankind and Christ's atonement for mankind -- Christ was after all nailed to a tree.
It's needles point heaven ward.
We put lights on the tree to symbolize how Christ is the light of the world.