Oh, Christmas tree! How far you’ve come along

Upside-down trees and the ‘Christmas miracle’ that brought a little much-needed hope to 2020 are among the many rather surprising tidbits about the traditional Christmas evergreen, a centuries-old beacon of the holiday spirit.

It's the most important tree of the year. Whether real evergreens or faux, plastic stand-ins, the Christmas tree has come to symbolize the biggest holiday for Christians around the world. Considered a must-have decoration for those who celebrate and open gifts with loved ones every Dec. 25, the Christmas tree’s interesting history dates back at least two millennia.

But how did this tradition of bringing a tree into your house take shape and come to hold such special meaning?

“Christians weren't actually the first to admire and decorate Christmas trees,” said Deemer Cass, Christmas tree and decorations expert at UK-based gardening firm Fantastic Services.

“The tradition started more than 2,000 years ago when pagans used to worship evergreen trees as a symbol of fertility,” Cass told AccuWeather. It was also widely held pagan tradition to celebrate the winter solstice by adorning homes and temples with evergreens, as was the custom of the Romans, ancient Egyptians, and even Vikings.

With the Christmas tree’s lengthy history comes a number of fascinating and lesser-known tidbits about this popular holiday staple:

Topsy-turvy: It was once common to hang your tree upside down

You heard that right. In parts of Austria and Germany in the 1700s, evergreen tips were brought into the home and hung top down from the ceiling, according to the National Christmas Tree Association. They were decorated with apples, nuts, sweets wrapped in shiny paper, gold-painted pine cones and red paper strips.

According to folklore, the practice is rooted in the 7th century, when a Benedictine monk supposedly used the triangular shape of the inverted fir tree as a way of explaining the Holy Trinity to the pagans whom he once saw worshipping an oak tree.

Later, in the 19th century, people sometimes hung small trees from the rafters for a more practical reason - for lack of room.

"In the small common rooms of the lower classes, there was simply no space," Bernd Brunner wrote in his book, Inventing the Christmas Tree.

The idea even became somewhat trendy in the past few years, with some hotel lobbies even seen bedecked with elaborate and glistening upside-down trees.

War of the Christmas trees

Two cities, Riga and Tallinn — the capitals of Latvia and Estonia in Eastern Europe, have waged a somewhat longstanding feud over who had the world's first decorated Christmas tree. According to The New York Times, a decorating ceremony that included adorning a fir tree with paper flowers, singing and dancing around it, and then lighting it on fire days later, took place in the town square of Riga in 1510.

But Tallinn residents claim a much earlier event, in 1441, saw a Christmas tree decorated with fruits and candles during a similar festival backdrop. That tree was also set ablaze.

The activity stuck and later on the Germans were among the first to adopt the tradition of decorating a tree, according to Cass.

Getting its big break

Despite whoever first laid claim to the tree's establishment as a Christmas symbol, the idea of decorating a tree to celebrate Christmas slowly evolved. In the late Middle Ages during the 16th century, after the Riga and Tallinn "events," evergreens were brought into the home and came to be called "paradise trees," according to National Geographic. They were often accompanied by wooden pyramids made of branches held together by rope. Some families would then attach gingerbread and gold-covered apples to the branches as well as adorn them with candles, which they would light.

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By 1605, it appears the idea of annual Christmas trees had started to take root in Europe. But it was Prince Albert from Germany, Queen Victoria's husband, who brought the tradition to England in the 1840s, Cass explained. “After the royal family was photographed with a decorated Christmas tree, the tradition spread among [commoners] and was later brought over to America.” Historians noted that German settlers also had a hand in introducing the idea of Christmas trees across the Atlantic to 19th-century America.

Green-dyed goose feathers?

Artificial Christmas trees originated in Germany during the 19^th century and later became popular in the U.S., according to the University of Illinois.

They were constructed using green-dyed goose feathers that were attached to wire branches. Those branches were then wrapped around a central dowel rod that served as the tree’s trunk.

A Christmas tree stowaway

In November 2020, a petite northern saw-whet owl was found trapped in the massive branches of a 75-foot Norway spruce that was headed to Rockefeller Center where it was to take its coveted spot as the annual Christmas tree.

Rockefeller, or Rocky as he was affectionately called, is believed to have traveled from Oneonta in upstate New York where the tree was cut down, all the way to New York City, The Washington Post reported at the time. The owl was found by a worker helping set up the tree in Manhattan, and he was removed from the branches. Rocky was taken to a wildlife center, where he was cared for before being released back into the wild.

Rocky attracted quite a following on social media once her plight went viral:

She even got her own children’s book written about her big adventure, titled “Rockefeller the Christmas Owl.”

Ellen Kalish, founder and director of the Ravensbeard Wildlife Center, called it the "Christmas miracle of 2020."

Looking at Christmas in a new light

Sixteenth-century Protestant reformer Martin Luther is credited with being the first to add lighted candles to a tree. While walking home one winter night, he was intrigued by the brilliance of stars twinkling between the evergreen trees, according to History.com. As the story goes, he recaptured the sight at home for his family by erecting a tree in the main room and wiring the branches with lit candles.

“[Luther] suggested attaching candles to the branches, which became quite popular until the electric fairy lights were invented,” Cass said.

Edward Johnson, Thomas Edison’s assistant, came up with the idea of putting electric lights on Christmas trees in 1882, according to the U.S. Library of Congress. Johnson lit up 80 red, white and blue hand-wired bulbs on a tree in the parlor of his New York City home. The tree, which was placed on a revolving base, caught the attention of The New York Times and a reporter from the Detroit Post and Tribune, who wrote: "There, at the rear of the beautiful parlors, was a large Christmas tree presenting a most picturesque and uncanny aspect. It was brilliantly lighted with many colored globes ... The result was a continuous twinkling of dancing colors, red, white, blue, white, red, blue -- all evening. I need not tell you that the scintillating evergreen was a pretty sight." 

The "lavish" display of electric lights on Christmas trees, however, was an expensive endeavor that only wealthy families could enjoy at the time. The cost to light an average holiday tree cost upwards of $300 - more than $2,000 today - including a "wireman's" service, according to the Library of Congress.

Costs came down several years later, once Christmas tree lighting became more widespread thanks to Albert Sadacca, a teenager who suggested his parents sell electric lights at their novelty store in New York City after hearing about a tragic fire in 1917 that started from candles on a holiday tree, according to the Library of Congress.

Sales at first were meager, but when he started painting the bulbs red, green and other bright colors instead of plain glass, business really picked up, reported ZME Science. Sadacca went on to build a multimillion-dollar company that still sells Christmas tree lighting, called NOMA Electric.

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