To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.

Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder. In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon, farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from his illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green palm rushes, which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death.Įarly Romans marked the solstice with a feast called Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The ancient Egyptians worshipped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows.

Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Watch Christmas documentaries on HISTORY Vault How Did Christmas Trees Start? Discover the history of the Christmas tree, from the earliest winter solstice celebrations to Queen Victoria’s decorating habits and the annual lighting of the Rockefeller Center tree in New York City. The history of Christmas trees goes back to the symbolic use of evergreens in ancient Egypt and Rome and continues with the German tradition of candlelit Christmas trees first brought to America in the 1800s. Who Brought Christmas Trees to America?.