the origin of christmas tree ?

Both England and America learned about the Christmas tree in the 1830s. Their source was the same: Germany, where the custom of decorating evergreens at Christmas time had long been established. But the English didn't quite get it, as attested by the Oxford English Dictionary, which explains this custom as "a famous feature of Christmas celebration in Germany, frequently but imperfectly imitated in England, especially since its introduction into the royal household in the early years of the reign of Queen Victoria."

Victoria came to the throne in England in 1837. By then, Americans were learning about Christmas trees not from royalty but from German-American neighbors. Harriet Martineau, in her 1838 Retrospect of Western Travel, declared, "I was present at the introduction into the new country of the spectacle of the German Christmas-tree." Americans, who had already enthusiastically adopted Santa Claus (1773), eagerly embraced the tree. By 1855 an article in the Rural New Yorker could remark, "The last thing attended to is the selection and adornment of the Christmas tree."

And the present-day sentimentality of the tree was well established a year later when the San Francisco Call wrote, "Who can think...of the anxious children gathered round the Christmas tree--the fabulous visits of Santa Claus...without feeling that man has other ends than those that characterize every day life?" Although artificial trees are increasingly replacing real ones, electric lights now take the place of candles, and we are careful to say humans or people instead of man, that editorial would not be much different in a newspaper of the present day.

The tree is so important to our celebration of the season that in parts of the country, especially the South and New England, Christmas tree also stands for a Christmas party held at home around the tree, complete with carols and presents.

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http://www.answers.com/topic/christmas-tree

Origin

A Christmas tree from 1900. The custom of erecting a Christmas tree can be traced to 16th century Northern Germany, though neither an inventor nor a single town can be identified as the sole origin for the tradition. The tradition spread rapidly throughout Germany and abroad. "It was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, that it spread rapidly and grew into a general German custom, which was soon accepted also by the Slavic people of Eastern Europe…" In the Cathedral of Strasbourg in 1539, the church record mentions the erection of a Christmas tree. In that period, the guilds started erecting Christmas trees in front of their guildhalls: Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann (Marburg professor of European ethnology) found a Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 which reports how a small fir was decorated with "apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers" and erected in the guild-house, for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas Day. Another early reference is from Basel, where the tailor apprentices carried around town a tree decorated with apples and cheese in 1597.

False claims about the first Christmas tree are made in Riga, Latvia and Tallinn, Estonia. Such claims are still routinely quoted in tourist guides , but they are refuted by Estonian historian Anu Mand and Latvian historian Gustavs Strenga . In both cities there is a documented tradition of German trader society Schwarzhäupter to burn a tree on Ash Wednesday (1510 in Riga, and 1441 in Tallinn), but it was burning rather than decorating a tree, and the tradition was not related to Christmas.

其中一个是说：大约在十六世纪，圣诞树最先出现在德国，德国人把长青的松柏枝拿到屋中去摆设，将之成为圣诞树。后来，由德国人马丁路德把蜡烛放在树林中的枞树枝上，然后点燃蜡烛，使它看起来像是引导人们到伯利恒去。而近今日，人们已经改用粉色的小灯泡了。 另一个传说记载。据说有一位农民在一个风雪交加的圣诞夜里接待了一个饥寒交迫的小孩，让他吃了一顿丰盛的圣诞晚餐，这个孩子告别时折了一根杉树枝插在地上并祝福说：“年年此日，礼物满枝，留此美丽的杉村，报答你的好意。”小孩走后，农民发现那树枝竟变成了一棵小树，他才明白自己接待的原来是一位上帝的使者。这个故事就成为圣诞树的来源。在西方，不论是否基督徒，过圣诞节时都要准备一棵圣诞树，以增加节日的欢乐气氛。圣诞树一般是用杉柏之类的常绿树做成，象征生命长存。树上装饰着各种灯烛、彩花、玩具、星星，挂上各种圣诞礼物。圣诞之夜，人们围着圣诞树唱歌跳舞，尽情欢乐。 圣诞树真正出现在圣诞节时，首先见于德国，之后又传入欧洲和美国，并以其优美的姿态，成为圣诞节不可缺少的装饰。圣诞树的种类繁多，有天然松柏圣诞树、也有人造圣诞树及白色圣诞树。每棵圣诞树上都挂满琳琅满目的装饰品，但每棵树的顶端必定有个特大的星星，象徵三博士跟随该星而找到耶稣，而且也只有该家庭的一家之主可以把这棵希望之星挂上。