Every christmas needs a beautifully decorated tree to place your presents under. These evergreen trees aren’t only found at home, where they’re decorated in all forms and sizes. During the holiday season you can also find them on cristmas markets, in malls and other public places.
The tradition of the christmas tree dates back to a time way before the ancient romans.Many cultures had a tradition of decorating their houses with green plants representing health and life during the dark winter days.
The ancient romans used leafs of the laurel berry. They were put up for new year’s. But they also knew decorated trees. Especially in the northern european counrties this was often done with pine trees.
But even you can’t think of christmas without thinking of pine trees, the tradition of placing them in our homes dates back to the 18th century. Until then people were decorating single branches and put them into their homes, the size of the branches grew with wealth until they started using whole trees.
Today, you can still judge the resident’s wealth by the size of their tree. Poorer families usually have smaller of even plastic trees while the wealthy have trees reaching the ceiling. This also applies to decorations, because you can also spend a fortune on those.
Speaking of decorations: for ages, people have been using more than just straw stars, cookies, gingerbread and candy canes. The „paradise trees“ of medieval times were solely decorated with apples and paper flowers for example. You can also buy handmade and beautifully decorated glass balls, porcelain figurines and other designer pieces for your tree.
