a bunch a x-mass trees - I have collected over the years

Christmas Tree up coming Season -4-

“Among many legends most common stories tells the tale of an old woodcutter that stumbled across a young hungry child in the woods. He stopped chopping trees for a bit to befriend and feed the child. Once their meal was finished the two went on their separate ways. Early during the next morning the child appeared in front of the woodcutter and his wife in the form of a spirit.

He identified himself as Christkind and thanked the surprised woodcutter for his act of kindness on the previous day. To repay the woodcutter's good will, Christkind gave him the sprig of an evergreen tree and told him the tree from which the sprig came would bear fruit year round. In response to this miraculous incident, each year Germans started felling evergreen trees each winter”.

 The most widespread, and to children the most delightful, of all festal institutions is the Christmas tree. Its picturesqueness and gaudy charm have made it spread rapidly all over Europe without roots in national tradition. the tree is purely splendor for splendor's sake. However tawdry it may look by day, at night it is a true thing of wonder, shining with countless lights and glittering ornaments, with fruit of gold and shimmering festoons of silver.

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“Another version of the legends about the Christmas tree goes back to the 1300's. During that time, artists used to roam around in the streets carrying huge pine boughs, loaded with apples.

This act was a kind of advertisement for the miracle plays they used to stage on the steps of the church, the plays about Adam and Eve, with the boughs representing the Garden of Eden.

Slowly and gradually, this 'paradise tree' came to be associated with life and was named as the 'Christ Child's Tree' and after words Christmas tree”.

Christmas trees have a long and exciting history. During the pre-Christian era, people and tribes often had holy groves and trees where they sacrificed to the gods. The trees were most often oak or ash, and they symbolized a connection between heaven and earth. Similar ideas are found in the Old Testament – trees symbolized wisdom and life.

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Another legend is credited to “the German theologian and reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546), who in 1530 was moved by the sight of stars shining though the forest of firs near his home, that he apparently cut a small one and brought it indoors.

He then placed, lit candles in its boughs as a salute to the star of Bethlehem. By the 1800s, the Christmas tree custom was widespread throughout many parts of Europe, and was brought to America by the Pennsylvania German immigrants in the 1820's.

In 1880, Woolworth sold the first manufactured Christmas tree ornaments, and the first electrically lighted Christmas tree appeared in 1882

Christmas Tree up coming Season -1-

Christmas tree is originated in Germany around 700 AD and Germans are responsible for bringing the Christmas tree to the New World. There are numerous conflicting myths and legends associated with the Christmas tree.

 As per one legend, at the time of Pagan Yule celebration, the Pagan families used to believe in the wood sprits. They would bring a real tree inside their home in winter season, in order to provide a place to the spirits to remain warm during the cold months. Pagans hung bells from the branches of the tree so that they would know when a spirit  came inside their home.

Another legend is connected with St. Boniface, the Apostle of the Germans, who propagated Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 7th century. St. Boniface was furious when he saw pagans revering an oak tree. He hacked it down, but when a fir tree sprang up on the spot, he decided to use the tree's triangular shape to describe the Trinity.

By the 12th Century, Central Europeans were hanging fir trees - upside down - from ceilings at Christmas.