Nativity Inside a Christmas Tree

About this drawing

A nativity in Christmas tree form combines two symbols that were once seen as rivals. The manger scene, spread by Franciscan friars, took root in Catholic southern Europe. The decorated tree came from German lands and was warmly embraced in Protestant northern Europe, and for a long time a family usually chose one or the other.

Suspicion ran both ways. Many Italians and Spaniards saw the fir tree as a foreign and rather pagan fashion. Meanwhile, some Protestants worried that carved figures looked too much like Catholic devotions. Early American Puritans were even more strict and rejected Christmas celebrations outright, and Massachusetts banned them for a time in the seventeenth century.

Immigration eventually softened those lines in the United States. German, Italian, Irish, and Moravian families brought their customs into the same neighborhoods, and homes began displaying both. A notable moment came in 1982, when Pope John Paul II put up a large tree in St. Peter's Square, next to the Vatican's nativity. The pair has appeared there every Christmas since. Today, nobody finds it strange to set a crèche on a table beside a tree full of lights. Designers love playing with the combination, tucking a tiny stable into the branches or, as here, placing the entire family inside the shape of a tree.

• nativity
• christmas tree
• poinsettia
• holy family