For many, the donning of a tree marks the beginning of the Christmas season, but what many don’t know is that this tradition didn’t start with the Christian holiday. Many cultures have found special significance in the trees which stayed green during the winter. Just from an aesthetic point of view, people have been grateful for centuries for the splash of color and symbol of life that an evergreen tree or bush provides as a reminder that though winter is here, a season bursting with life and warmth will soon be arriving.
In America, the practice of using trees to decorate for Christmas didn’t catch on until after the 1840’s. Although Martin Luther is often credited to be responsible for adding lights to a tree in honor of Christmas, Americans generally felt that decorating a tree as a Christian was heresy because of their pagan roots.
Today over 100,000 people are employed in the Christmas tree industry, with farms in every state including Hawaii. Over 73 million trees are planted a year. As of 2007, the average cost of a tree was $41.50, and the entire industry brought in over $1.3 billion dollars. An acre of Christmas trees provides enough clean oxygen for up to 18 people. If you are interested in more amazing facts about real Christmas trees, you can check out this website.
The most beautiful part of the Christmas tree for me, is having a part of creation brought into the house. The smell of a pine tree reminds me that life goes on even in the darkness of winter. Days are short, and often dreary here in December, and without the splash of color, fragrance and elegance of a Christmas tree I imagine my mood would match my surroundings. In addition, I find a Christmas tree to be a beautiful symbol as we celebrate a new Life this holiday season, that this Life was given on a tree for all of mankind. It was a tree that held this Man-God in His final moments, stained with His valuable blood. Now, I remember the greatest Gift by decorating a tree in His honor.
Link up your post with a picture of a Christmas tree! Include my blog button, and visit other “tree” blogs. Stop by tomorrow to vote for your favorite Christmas tree picture and to find out what tomorrow’s photo hunt will be! Have fun! (Blog links must be provided before 8:00 CST, in order to be voted on :-)) I have no idea why the number of links doesn’t update…There are participants!
Today, I’m thankful with Ann for:
74. Momentarily molten sunrises
75. Winter weary grasses made alive again in summer sunny vases.
76. Sunny exposure silhouettes making art on walls.
77. Shadows more beautiful than reality.
78. Having a best friend in my mom.
79. I name this moment “the house of God”, not-so quiet rapper, crying baby, cell phone ringing and all.
80. First snow and a little one to share it with.
81. Sunlight stretches, reaches, yawns across my living room floor.
82. Wreath scraping, screeching against window pane..working like an unprimed pump searching, thirsting for water.
83. Thai with my favorite guy.
And Michelle at:
And Laura at:
journeytoepiphany.wordpress.com 
Fab photos!
Thanks Susie!
I love reading about the traditions behind the things we do. I grew up with Christmas trees but my husband didn’t grow up with any Christmas decorations. We are kind of forging a new tradition – I have a 6 inch tree and a nativity set! I tried to link up to the scavenger hunt – I don’t see the link appear so I don’t know if it worked 🙂
Now I see it 🙂
🙂
How exciting! You get to start traditions, all fresh and brand new. I’m glad you’ve linked up here!
I love your photos – with their contemporary warmness. I love your Thanksgiving List most of all! Simply Beautiful! Each Thanks! BTW – thanks for the invite today:)
You’re welcome! It’s good to see your post included in the linkup!
Beautiful photos! Great list! Blessings to you as you search for the authentic Christmas!
Thank you Mari-Anna! I feel like Cindy Louhoo singing “Where are you Christmas?”
Wonderful post.
Just love “Life was given on a tree for all of mankind”.
Beautiful photos.
Thank you Joan! I appreciate you coming by!
Oh, this is so fun! I’ll try to take a pic of my tree and solink up on. I think one of the wonderful things about Christianity is the way we have taken existing traditions and made them our own. Love me a lit up Christmas tree on a dark December day!
giggle. i don’t know what happened but that should say “link up soon”. 🙂
😉
I agree Laura. I think its sad when we witch hunt. My goodness, if we looked at the origins of everything and eradicated everything that seemed to come from paganism, we wouldn’t be able to do anything! God made trees, He died on a tree, we decorate them to celebrate these two facts. How lovely! PS. I hope you do come back and linkup!
Thank you, for leaving a comment on my post, bringing me here 🙂
Beautiful list with photos!
Wishing you a wonderful week,
Eva
Thank you Eva…It was a pleasure having you.
beautiful pics…I had a funny experience with our tree this year…a full blown allergic reaction…pics on my blog…so our love of live Christmas trees have come to an end…
we will have to see how the artificial tree goes…
I hope you’ll consider linking that great post here! There were many great pics, and your lovely words….
What a great idea! Great pictures too! I’ll link up our little tree we got to decorate during our travels.
That will be great fun!
Enjoyed reading about Christmas trees. I miss going to the tree farm when the kids were little and tagging our tree and then coming back to cut it before Christmas. We don’t even put a tree up now. We don’t have anyplace to put it in our little townhouse, and since we go away for the holidays, there’s nobody around to see it anyway. Very nice post.
There was a time when I thought my parents were crazy for not having their own tree, but as my children get older, I totally understand. I am grateful that I have the time to revisit the real meaning of Christmas…
Our children usually put up our tree (an artificial one) but this year they were in too much of a hurry. I docorated our yard and across the front of our place with lights and some in the shape of trees. We will put up a very small artificial tree in the house. I miss the nice smell of the real trees.
Don’t feel too badly, I have a real tree, and it has no fragrance at all. 😦
Does that two-tier oil lamp still work as an oil lamp, or has it been converted to electricity? (Sorry, I’m a sucker for oil lamps – I have seriously lost count of how many we have!)
Sadly, we have no live trees in the yard to decorate (just a couple sticks that would make Charlie Brown proud). We’ll stick with our couple of little (about 1′ tall) light up trees, one ceramic, one plastic with fiber-optic lights.
Sorry I can’t participate, no blog. Yet. 😉
My Dear John,
We are all waiting for that day…until then, you could send me a picture via e-mail and I’d be glad to add it to the list… journeytoepiphany at gmail dot com.
I’m so glad you stopped by Heart Choices today. I love your list of blessings as you continue to count with Ann of A Holy Experience for Multitudes on Mondays.
I am going to link up as you suggested. Yes, I took the photo of the Christmas tree. Thank you for recommending I do so.
Blessings and love,
Debbie
I’m glad I can by as well! Thanks for linking up your photo! It’s going to be loads of fun!
Oh- so sorry I missed submitting my tree as you asked! 😦 Thanks for your sweet comment yesterday. I don’t need to be voted on, but I’d be glad to send a link/photo along if you’d still like…
I’d love to have you link up, We’re doing wreaths today…