O Tannenbaum: Or, a Brief History of the Christmas Tree

Elaborate window displays. Throngs of bustling shoppers. Salvation Army bands. SantaCon. It’s Christmas time here in New York City—and in other places, too, of course!—and along with the aforementioned scenes, one of the surest signs that the holiday season has arrived is the sight of people bringing home Christmas trees.  Strapped atop automobile roofs, lugged down sidewalks, even squeezed into subway cars—they are seemingly everywhere, making their way toward new, appreciative homes while leaving trails of needles in their wakes. Indeed, the Christmas tree is so ubiquitous in American culture that we rarely pause to consider its origin. Let's take a break from the season's commotion, then, in order to better appreciate the history of this most festive conifer. 

Certainly, the use of evergreen trees and wreaths in religious ceremonies dates from as far back as ancient Rome, if not earlier. However,  it isn't until 1510 that we encounter the first documented use of a tree in a winter Christmas celebration.  In that year, members of a merchants guild in Riga, Latvia, placed a tree in the town square, which they proceeded to decorate with flowers, ribbons, and dried fruit. After the festivities—which included the singing of songs and dancing—were concluded, the tree was burned.

Though popular in Germany and other parts of northern Europe by the 1700s, the practice of decorating a pine or fir tree during the holiday season remained virtually unknown in the English-speaking world prior to the 19th century. It was only with the marriage of Queen Victoria to her German cousin Prince Albert in 1840 that the custom of the Christmas tree became widely accepted and practiced throughout the British Isles. 

The Christmas Tree: A Present from Germany is one of a number of volumes in The New York Public Library's collections that documents the early history of the Christmas tree custom in Great Britain. Published in 1844 by the Darton firm of London, this charming children’s book relates the story of the Christmas tree’s introduction to Britain in the form of a dialogue between a father and his young daughter. 

In the United States, the practice of placing a decorated tree inside one’s home was most likely introduced by German immigrants who arrived soon after the Revolution. The otherwise unassuming volume seen here, the 1836 edition of The Stranger's Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present, is significant in that it is the first book printed in the Americas to contain an image of a Christmas tree.

By the middle part of the 19th century, images of Christmas trees festooned with candles, wooden ornaments, and small gifts regularly featured in mainstream American periodicals such as Godey's Lady's Book and Harper’s Weeklyas well as in the artwork of the period's holiday greeting cards.  

Collectively, these sentimental mass-market depictions exerted a strong influence over Americans’ popular tastes, helping to further cement the tree-decorating custom in the national consciousness. Correspondingly, Franklin Pierce’s decision to erect a tree in the White House in 1856—thereby becoming the first president to do so—also helped to further institutionalize the tradition. By the end of the century, the annual sale of Christmas trees, along with the sale of decorations with which to embellish them, had become a booming business throughout the United States.

Today, Americans’ love affair with the Yuletide spruce shows no sign of abating. According to the latest statistics from the National Christmas Tree Association, in 2015 Americans purchased over 38 million trees (both real and fake), accounting for more than 2 billion dollars in sales. 

O Tannenbaum, indeed!