When you step back and think about it, it’s funny how little most of us know about beloved holiday traditions. Perhaps you can’t imagine a holiday season without Christmas trees and yet you have no idea why or when we began chopping down pine trees and decorating them. Or, maybe you adore decorating gingerbread houses, but you’ve never learned why we create these adorable — yet quite impractical — cookie abodes. It’s time to learn why we do such crazy things each December! Let’s explore the history of Christmas traditions.
How Popular Christmas Traditions Got Their Start
Decorating Christmas Trees
Decorating trees during the holidays originated in Germany, Estonia, and Latvia in the Middle Ages. Several different religions and cultures included trees in wintertime decorations and festivals. For example, Pagans decorated their homes with evergreen branches to celebrate the winter solstice, and Christians put up “Paradise Trees” to represent the Garden of Eden in Christmas plays. The tradition traveled to the United States with German immigrants in the early 1800s, though it wasn’t adopted right away. Queen Victoria actually helped popularize the tradition in the United Kingdom and the United States when she and her family appeared in an illustration with a Christmas tree in 1846. Back then, most families decorated their trees with homemade ornaments.
Baking Gingerbread Houses
Once again, exploring the history of Christmas traditions takes us to Germany. The tradition of baking and decorating gingerbread houses originated there in the early 1800s, and many say it was actually popularized by the publication of Hansel & Gretel in 1812. Inspired by the Grimm brothers’ description — “The house was built of bread, and roofed with cakes, and the window was of transparent sugar.” — some German bakers began crafting small houses from spiced honey biscuits called lebkuchen, which are similar to gingerbread. They became a popular treat to enjoy during Christmastime.
Hanging Stockings
Who first thought to hang socks, stockings, or sock-shaped bags on their mantle so that St. Nicholas (i.e., Santa Claus) could fill them with candy, fruit, and other goodies? Though historians aren’t quite sure, the tradition may have been inspired by St. Nicholas’s life.
The legend begins with a widowed father, who worried his lack of money would make it difficult for his three daughters to marry. St. Nicholas, hearing of the family’s plight and understanding the father’s pride would prevent him from accepting a direct gift, decided to slip down the family’s chimney. The girls’ recently laundered stockings were hanging by the fire to dry, and St. Nicholas filled them with gold coins before disappearing into the night. The family woke and rejoiced, and the daughters were able to marry.
By 1823, stockings were mentioned in the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” more commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas,” cementing them as a holiday activity. Traditionally, stockings were put out for Saint Nicholas Day, but today most people think of them as a Christmas Eve tradition.
Singing Christmas Carols
Though carols have been sung in Europe for thousands of years, they weren’t exactly the Christmas carols we know and love today. They began as Pagan songs sung at winter solstice celebrations and often accompanied by dancing. Through Early Christians, this evolved into singing carols to celebrate Christmas. All the way back in 129, a Roman Bishop requested that a carol called “Angel’s Hymn” be included in a Christmas service. In the years that followed, composers began writing “Christmas carols,” but most of them were written in Latin and so couldn’t be sung by the majority of people. Over time, however, songs were written in European languages. The first English carols date back to 1426. Some of the oldest Christmas carols that you’ll still hear sung today are “Good King Wenceslas” and “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.”
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Learning the history of Christmas traditions isn’t just enlightening; it can also lead to great conversation starters. We hope you have fun sharing some of these fun facts with your nearest and dearest. Merry Christmas!
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