Santa Trimming the Christmas Tree

About this drawing

Picture Santa decorating the tree and you are looking at a custom with German roots. By the sixteenth century, people in German-speaking lands were bringing evergreens indoors and trimming them with apples, nuts, sweets, and paper flowers. Craft guilds set them up too, long before the tree became a family fixture.

A popular legend says Martin Luther added candles to copy the stars he saw shining through the branches. No evidence backs that up, but the story stuck. What is certain is that the custom stayed largely German for a long time. Some Americans, especially New England Puritans, viewed Christmas celebrations of any kind with suspicion.

Then came a powerful bit of publicity. Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, was German, and the couple put up trees at Windsor Castle. In 1848, a London newspaper printed an engraving of the royal family around one, loaded with candles and treats. A version soon ran in a Philadelphia magazine, and the middle classes on both sides of the Atlantic rushed to copy it. German immigrants in Pennsylvania had already been keeping the tradition, and now it spread nationwide. By the early 1900s, a large share of American homes had one, with electric bulbs replacing the risky candles of the past.

• santa
• christmas tree
• ornaments
• presents