The Tree Thing

There was a Christmas tree in the house every December when I was growing up. I very much liked it as a kid and spent an inordinate amount of time sitting by it. I’m not really sure why. My parents owned three homes in my lifetime and none had any shortage of trees on its lot. So, a tree in the house was special only by being in the house. 

1954

 Presents showed up underneath it Christmas morning, of course, but I liked the tree for itself. The lights and decorations didn’t matter much either. The tree alone had some atavistic appeal. My dad must have felt it too, though he never outright said so. He always brought home a Christmas tree before either my sister or I asked for one. During the rest of the year he followed the builders’ tradition of raising an evergreen on the roof peak when topping out a newly constructed house. It always was a sad day when the tree exited our house: usually on January 2, though a few times it dried too quickly and departed before the New Year.

The origin of Christmas trees is open to some debate. When the Council of Nicaea standardized the dates of Christian holidays in 425 CE they quite sensibly chose dates that coincided with pre-Christian holidays. The transition was easier that way. Solstice celebrations in one form or another had existed pretty much everywhere. (The solstice fell on December 25 when the Julian calendar was adopted.) Many pagan holiday traditions such as gift-giving for Saturnalia transferred readily to the new holidays. A millennium later, the Puritans banned the celebration of Christmas (Easter, too) precisely because of these pagan origins. Formalizing the ban into law in 1659, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony dictated: “It is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county.” They technically were right about the history… and yet they were wrong. One can't help suspecting (with HL Mencken) that the real worry the Puritans had was that someone somewhere might have fun.

Getting back to the trees, ancient pagans of central Europe and the Baltic celebrated the solstice in woodsy fashion by hanging evergreen wreathes, holding sacred grove ceremonies, and burning the Yule log. Christmas trees seemingly derive from these practices, but before the 16th century in Germany there is no mention in print of whole trees being brought indoors for the holiday, so this particular tradition may be no older than that. The trees became popular in the US in the mid-nineteenth century with the arrival of large numbers of German immigrants.

Though my mom and dad grew up Presbyterian and Catholic respectively, they were not dogmatic in religious matters as adults, and became less so with each passing year. They sent me to an Episcopal high school, but only because they thought it was better than the public school. So, for the most part their seasonal decorations were just festive. When pressed about their spiritual opinions in later years they sounded rather New Agey. My skepticism regarding all things mystical kicked in early, and in my 20s I shunned Christmas decorations with an almost Puritan adamancy – a youthful fault. For years I forewent any seasonal ornamentations on some sort of secularist principle. I didn’t object to others (including my parents) having them, of course, but in my first decade of living alone there were no Christmas trees in my dwelling space. I grew out of this unholier-than-thou attitude in time. Besides, the Neolithic (maybe Paleolithic) pagan origins of the seasonal celebrations that so distressed the Bay Colony court were the very things that gave me an excuse to ease up even before I mellowed with age. Before the 1980s ended, a tree reappeared in my home each December.

2019

Evergreens still have an atavistic appeal. So, in 2019 once again, there is a tree in my living room and egg in my nog. There will be gifts under the tree for friends and family on Christmas, too. Further, if I decide to build a small house for the stray cat who lives outside year round (something I’ve considered) I’ll raise an evergreen on its roof when it is topped out.

Tarja - O Tannenbaum