Christmas Tree Traditions and How Charlie Brown Saved Christmas

With this being the inaugural year of the Festival of Trees event benefiting Hope 1312 Collective, it seemed a good time to turn our attention to the focus of that event: Christmas trees. Last year was a huge year for Christmas trees! In a New York Times article from early December quoted Jennifer Greene, the executive director of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association, representing a state that harvests more than 4.1 million trees per year. “Families are trying to make the most of whatever experiences remain safe this holiday season, like going outside to pick out a tree together and decorating it.”

Doug Hundley, a spokesperson for the National Christmas Tree Association affirmed this, saying, “We didn’t realize that the Christmas spirit was going to help people with ‘the COVID blues.’” But that is exactly what was occurring, with Christmas tree growers reporting that sales were up as much as 50% in places like Michigan. Demand was soaring for both real and artificial trees and retailers were running through their supplies rapidly. While we haven’t delved into research for this year, it’s reasonable to believe that with continuing uncertainty in 2021, this high demand may continue. We love to wrap ourselves in the comfort of familiar traditions when the world around us is crazy. We embrace holidays as a reason to celebrate. And boy, do we adore Christmas!

But how did this tradition even start? Why is a decorated fir tree the symbol of the season? Evergreen boughs have been an essential part of seasonal décor in pagan winter solstice celebrations since ancient times. Carole Cusack, professor of religious studies at the University of Sydney shared, “Evergreens at midwinter festivals were traditional since the ancient world, signifying the victory of life and light over death and darkness.” But somewhere along the line these pagan traditions morphed into the tradition of celebrating a Christian holiday.

Many of the myths surrounding the origins of Christmas trees are rooted in religion. One popular 15th century legend tells the story of St. Boniface who stopped a pagan human sacrifice under an oak tree by cutting down the tree. In its place grew a fir tree, with its branches representing the eternal truth of Christ. Other versions of this myth further say that he cut down the new fir tree and hung it upside down. This led to the tradition of trees being hung upside down, often with an apple wedged at the point, to represent the Holy Trinity. It’s also said that Martin Luther believed that God’s goodness was represented by pine trees.

Several countries claim to be the birthplace of the Christmas tree, but its origin can be traced to regions

In 1419, a guild in Freiburg put up a tree decorated with apples, flour-paste wafers, gingerbread, and tinsel. In the Christmas Eve “Paradise Plays” commemorating the feast day for Adam and Eve, the tree of knowledge was represented by an evergreen fir with apples tied to its branches. There is ample documentation to be found of trees decorated with straw, wool, apples, nuts, and pretzels. There are indications that the oldest Christmas tree market was located in the Alsace region of Strasbourg. Historical records further indicate that a Christmas tree was raised in the Strasbourg Cathedral in 1539, and that by 1554 the tradition had grown so popular throughout the region that the city of Freiburg banned felling trees for Christmas and cutting pine branches. Decorations described on the trees being set up indoors included roses, apples, wafers and other sweets.

By the 18th century, Germany’s Christmas trees were popular throughout Europe. The Christmas tree was probably first introduced to the royal household in England in the mid-18th century by Queen Charlotte, who was a princess of a German duchy, when she married King George III. But it was a famous illustration that appeared in an 1848 edition of the London News of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with their children gathered around a decorated Christmas tree with presents underneath which captured the world’s attention. Not only did the image make an impression in the U.K., where Queen Victoria was well established as a trendsetter, but it also crossed the ocean.

While references to Christmas trees in North American residences and establishments date back to the late 18th and early 19th century, it was only after that image was reprinted in 1850 in Godey’s Lady’s Book, the premier women’s magazine in America at the time, that Christmas trees really gained their popularity in the U.S. Worth mentioning: the Philadelphia-based magazine edited out Victoria’s crown and Albert’s royal sash to give the impression of a typical American family. According to Judith Flanders in her book Christmas: A Biography, “This single image cemented the Christmas tree in the popular consciousness, so much so that by 1861, the year of Albert’s death, it was firmly believed that this German prince had transplanted the custom to England when he married.”

When it comes to lighting the trees, legend again has us looking to Protestant reformer Martin Luther who is often credited with being the first to light a Christmas tree with candles, inspired by a nighttime stroll through the forest under twinkling stars. It was Thomas Edison's assistant, Edward Johnson, who came up with the idea of electric lights for Christmas trees in 1882. Christmas tree lights were first mass-produced in 1890. By 1900, department stores were putting up large, illuminated Christmas trees to welcome the season. The electricity lobby pushed to establish the first “National Christmas Tree” at the White House, a nearly 60’ tall balsam fir tree covered in 2,500 light bulbs, as a publicity stunt to promote the “miracle” of electric light. The first lighting of the National Christmas Tree in 1923 was overseen by President Calvin Coolidge. Approximately a decade later, New York City lit the first Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. The 20’ tall tree became a symbol of hope, because the building was still under construction at the time and the project put numerous people unemployed during the Great Depression back to work. The lighting of these two beloved trees remains a part of America’s Christmas traditions to this day.

How Charlie Brown Saved Christmas (Trees, That Is.)

Just as Germany started the Christmas tree tradition, they were the first to create artificial trees. In fact, it was a response to the deforestation caused by the popularity of Christmas trees around 1880. They were initially made of goose feathers that were dyed green, split, and secured by wire to form branches, which were attached to dowels. Because the goose feather trees weren’t very sturdy and couldn’t hold many ornaments, a British brush company improved on the design in the early 1900s by using stiffer and more durable brush bristles dyed green. But it was 1958 that marked the most noteworthy era of artificial trees.

This was the year that a toy sales manager at Aluminum Specialty Company of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, saw a metal tree in a store window and brought the idea back to his employer. The company introduced the “Evergleam” just in time for Christmas 1959. The branches for these light, cheap trees were made up of aluminum foil branches with woven aluminum “needles.” They were then attached by inserting the ends into holes drilled into a wooden or aluminum central pole, making a tree shape. The trees were priced at $25 and with the optimism of the time and the season, several hundred were produced. Suffice it to say, the trees were a hit. Adored for their futuristic “Space Age” look, the trees became a design trend by the 1960s and were available in a variety of colors, including silver and pink. Due to fire safety concerns, they couldn’t be lit in the same manner traditional trees were, so they were often paired with a color wheel which was placed under the tree to illuminate the tree’s branches with different, changing colors. They were modern, clean, and required no special care or maintenance. Who wanted boring realism when you could have futuristic fantasy?! After all, we were sending astronauts into space!

Then came Charlie Brown.

In the 1965 animated holiday classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown is tasked with getting a Christmas tree for the school’s Nativity display. Lucy tells him to “get the biggest aluminum tree you can find,” and “maybe paint it pink.” But instead of choosing from the garish displays of aluminum trees, Charlie chooses a real tree, and it’s this sad little tree that bore the message about the reason for the season. The aluminum trees in the cartoon were used to symbolize the over-commercialization of Christmas while the little real tree, no matter how sad, represented the spirit of what’s truly important. The holiday special was popular, and its message resonated with the public.

Demand for and sales of aluminum Christmas trees peaked between 1959 and 1965. By 1967, two years after the Charlie Brown special first aired, they were no longer being regularly manufactured. Whether it was Charlie Brown that “saved Christmas from its commercialism” and pushed out aluminum trees or it was simply a coincidence, and the tree fad simply ran its course, we may never know. While artificial trees were still the trend in Christmas 1964, realistic-looking Polyvinyl versions were making up approximately 35% of Christmas tree sales, and by the 1970s aluminum trees were virtually non-existent. However, with a wave of nostalgia for our childhood things, aluminum trees began re-emerging. Now you can find them in museum collections and in 2019, the 60th anniversary of the Evergleam Christmas tree, the Wisconsin Historical Society Museum hosted a special exhibit dedicated to “America’s Aluminum Christmas Tree.”  The shiny trees that could be bought in a garage sale for as little as a quarter in the late 80s are being scooped up by collectors on the internet for hundreds, and even thousands, of dollars. Sorry, Charlie.