This is a very Christian (Protestant, originally) symbol for celebrating a high holy day of the Catholic Church, and a holy day for all other Christian denominations as well (as far as I know).The original Christmas trees were hung with edible treats. Some trees were carried around, distributing gifts of cheese, etc, to the poor. Then the idea caught on with the European nobility and upper classes, and they started putting up trees indoors, hanging candies and other sweets for the kids to pick off the tree on Christmas morning.
Like anything else that the very rich like to do, the trickle down theory ended up providing for more widespread applications, as time went on.
However bizarre this custom has ended up being, though, the tree is not a symbol for some generic holiday... this is definitely Christian.
When I was a little kid, I wondered why we had a dead tree in the living room between Thanksgiving and New Year. Of course, I was taught to expect gifts underneath it on Christmas morning, so the sooner it went up, the more excited I got. I also wondered what the green zeroes on peoples' front doors were all about. ...Turns out that the origin of the Christmas wreath is the crown of thorns.
So, most of my life I've associated the Christmas tree with my greedy impulses, and the wreaths with the crown of thorns.
...I mean, the wreath is either what it really is, or else its a green zero.
Anyway, the big Christmas tree in the Common was being decorated with giant mechanized arms this morning, and so I stopped for a moment on Front Street to snap the picture.
You can also see it in real time on the webcam.
1 comments:
Of course, the whole idea of decorating a fir tree around the time of the winter solstice was cribbed from European pagan cultures in the first place.
Post a Comment