Christmas tree

The Christmas tree ( depending on the region also known as the Christmas tree or Christmas tree ) is a coniferous tree, which is situated to the Christmas season in churches, homes and villages and decorated with fairy lights, candles, glass balls, tinsel, angels or other figures. This Christmas custom spread in the 19th century by Germany from all over the world.

• 5.1 Roman Architecture
• 5.2 Middle Ages
• 5.3 Modern Times
• 5.4 popularization of the custom since the 18th century

• 6.1 Natural Christmas Trees
• 6.2 Artificial Christmas Trees
• 6.3 Christmas tree - sinking

Tree species used

Mainly fir trees are used as Christmas tree, next to pines and other conifers. In Germany, most ( around 16 million units a year) [Year? Evidence ?] The Nordmann fir used as Christmas tree. Their market share is nearly 80 per cent ( 2013). Until the late 1950s the Germans had almost exclusively Picea abies stand as a Christmas tree in the apartment. In the 1960s until the mid -1970s, they preferred the denser growing blue spruce, from the early 1980s, the Nordmann fir. This tree grows relatively evenly, has soft needles and loses much later than its predecessors. Crops are the Nordmann Firs mainly on agricultural land in the Sauerland region, in Schleswig -Holstein and Denmark, with Denmark, with exports of more than 10 million units [ year? Evidence ?] Market leader.

In Germany 2006, about 616 million euros were spent on 28 million Christmas trees, each tree that is about 22 euros. In recent years, a price increase is noted, which was observed in 2007. In particular, by increasing interest on China's buying up German Yield of wood rose 2007, the price of the typical Christmas tree. The required acreage for the cultivation of the 28 million Christmas trees is approximately 40,000 ha, the average yield is between 60 and 70 percent of the planted trees, but can vary widely depending on the operation, care and natural influences. Since the forest damage caused by hurricane Kyrill 2007 the number of areas with monocultures has risen sharply. The value of such plantations is thirty times the per hectare per year over normal forest management; However, more fences will be set and pesticides sprayed. In Brandenburg, Baden- Württemberg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig -Holstein, therefore, the creation of monocultures is approved, in North Rhine -Westphalia is such a law in planning.

Approximately 2.4 million Christmas trees are set up in Austria in the year, of which 85 % comes from local forests. From this comes the majority of Lower Austria, which also supplies the Vienna market. Imports from Denmark have been declining in recent years. In other countries, artificial Christmas trees made ​​of metal or plastic are also widely used, most of which are collapsible and reusable.

Effects on the environment

The career of the seed up to a two-meter Christmas tree takes, depending on species, between eight and twelve years. Seeds are first extracted from cones of older trees. The seed is then drawn into nurseries for seedling and sold after three to four years in forestry and Christmas tree farms as young plants. The other form and growth developments of Christmas trees are highly dependent on the soil quality, climatic conditions and carried out maintenance work.

With the addition of oxygen, which then allows the sales of carbon, and biomass are produced, thereby enabling a temporary fixation of carbon dioxide is possible. With a cultivated area of ​​25,000 ha in the following values ​​from the cultivation:

Construction and removal

The Christmas tree is erected before Christmas Eve. While it was traditionally abgeschmückt in the evangelical room after the feast of the Epiphany on January 6, he remains in Catholic families often until the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord ( Candlemas, February 2 ) are, ended with the earlier Christmas time (since the liturgical reform them but ends with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord). Discarded Christmas trees are partially collected and burned in the Easter fire. If Christmas trees are not yet dried up, they can also elephants and other animals in the circus or zoo serve as food. The collected in Vienna Christmas trees are recycled in a biomass power plant to district heating.

Christmas tree stand

A Christmas tree stand is used for fixing and putting up the Christmas tree. It generally consists of a circular shape, similar to a large plant pot, which can be filled with water, and a holding device made ​​of metal, which is located in the mold. Some Christmas tree stands hold the tree with screws, others use a cable to clamp or on a pin for attaching.

Chance can still be the 1900 most of them from the time Christmas tree stand with a lift mechanism that provides for rotation of the tree and at the same time is a music box in operation that takes one or more Christmas songs to it. By the end of the 19th century, it was usual in some regions, the Christmas tree, sometimes upside down, hanging from the ceiling. In Lower Austria's Waldviertel region can still be found in the offices and living quarters of older buildings hook on the ceiling to fix the Christmas tree.

Tree decorations

The first Christmas tree balls were blown around 1830. Gradually the custom of the office greening was also the ordinary people of this popular and brought branches and " Danne sticks " into the house. The tinsel tradition was developed in 1878 as an innovation in Nuremberg. As Christbaumbehang tinsel symbolizes the appearance of glittering icicles. In some regions, no tinsel is traditionally used, for example, in Upper Franconia.

Today, the Christmas tree is usually with colorful glass elements (especially Christmas baubles ), Nicholas figures, tinsel, straw stars, small wooden figures and candy decorated. At the top you usually sets a star (following the Star of Bethlehem ), an angel or a glass top. The individual branches of the tree are decorated with candles. Under the tree next to the crib and the Christmas presents are often built. In many families, the children should not see the decorated tree in front of the mess and were stopped by the parents to first consider the tree in front of their own gifts, a beautiful symbol of the disinterested character of the gift and the unifying event of the festival.

History

The use of a decorated tree has no historically verifiable beginning but takes in customs of different cultures originated. Evergreen plants embodied life force, and that's why people believed in earlier times, to get health into the house by decorating their homes with green.

Roman Architecture

The Romans crowned the year their houses with laurel branches. By adorning a tree on the winter solstice was honored the sun god in the cult of Mithras. In northern regions were pine branches hung in winter early into the house to make it harder evil spirits penetration and implantation, at the same time gave the green hope for the return of spring.

Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages consisted in many places the custom to decorate certain public festivities whole trees, such as the Maypole or the target tree. At Christmas paradise games were listed in the church, because December 24 of the liturgical Memorial of Adam and Eve used to be, to the paradise tree, which could be quite a deciduous tree, was hung with apples. The apple served as a sign of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge and reminiscent of the Fall of Man and of the liberation of man from original sin through Jesus Christ. Even into the 19th century, decorated in northern Germany his Christmas tree with Adam and Eve and snake made ​​of wood or pastries.

The statement that the first documentary mention of a Christmas tree from 1419 originates, is widely used, but can not be confirmed by sources. The Freiburg bakers should after this blank statement have hung a tree with all kinds of sweets, fruits and nuts, which the children were allowed to plunder after shaking off on New Year's.

Modern Times

From an entry dated 1521 in an account book of the Humanist Library in Schlettstadt: "Item IIII shillings the foerster the meyen to sanct Thomas tag to hieten. " ( NHG translation: "Just four shillings the Rangers, so he from the St. Thomas Day trees guarded. " )

From the black heads in Riga and Reval were in the first half of the 16th century towards the end of the Christmas fir trees ( from the guild halls? ) Worn on the market, decorated and burned at the end.

The oldest written record of a Christmas tree dates back to the year 1527. To read in a file of Mainz rulers of " the weiennacht tree " in the forest floor Hübner am Main.

From 1539 there is a documentary proof again that a Christmas tree was erected in Strasbourg Cathedral. The guilds and associations were what the featured an evergreen tree in the Guild Houses. In a payroll of the imperial city of Gengenbach 1576 it is mentioned that the forester " ime straw Bach" have brought a " Wiehnachtsbaum uf the council chambers ."

The first records of the Christmas tree as a generally normal use are from the year 1605, again from Alsace: " Auff Christmas I set up Danne trees at Strasbourg in the rooms on. Because you Henket Rossen Auss much cut colored paper, apples, wafers, gold sibilant [ thin, shaped Flitterplättchen of metal ] and sugar ". 1611 decorated Duchess Dorothea Sibylle of Silesia the first Christmas tree with candles. The next message on the Christmas tree comes from Strasbourg. In a written 1642-1646 Scripture, the preacher got excited at the Münster Johann Conrad Dannhauer against the custom set up in the houses Christmas trees: "Among other trifles, so that one the old Christmas time often begehet more than the Word of God, is also the Christmas or Christmas tree, the one erects at home, same with sugar dolls and hung, and afterwards shake off him and pollination ( clear ) allows. Where the habit comes from, I know not; is a no-brainer. "

Popularization of the custom since the 18th century

Since the first half of the 18th century the news about the Christmas tree then become more frequent. Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling, born in 1740 in Nassau seems to bring a memory of his childhood, when he published in his 1793 The homesickness of the light illuminating the tree of life with gilded nuts, to which the child is conducted on the morning of Christmas day, saith.

From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once one of the first mentions of the Christmas tree in German literature. In The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774 ), the protagonist visits the Sunday before Christmas, the revered him Lotte and speaks of the times when a unexpected opening of the door and the appearance of a " dressed- tree " with wax lights, sweetmeats and apples in heavenly delight offset. Friedrich Schiller has indeed portrayed no Christmas scene in his works, but he loved the feast under the tree. In 1789 he wrote to Lotte, that he may come to Christmas to Weimar and said: "You will me hopefully a green tree in the room set up. " In 1805, the Christmas tree was a large readership thus known to him the Johann Peter Hebel in the song mother on Christmas Eve said from his Alemannic poems. E. T. A. Hoffmann's tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King in 1816 is Berlin's first literary monument, where the lights shining, adorned with golden apples and candy Christmas tree appears in the middle of the Christmas presents.

Since fir trees in central Europe were rare, these were initially able to afford only the wealthy layers, and the city 's population had to make do with branches and accumulating green. Only when propagated spruce and fir forests were created in the second half of the 19th century, the urban demand could be met.

The church, which included large areas of woodland, stepped in against the plundering of the forest at Christmas time. By the time they took over the custom. When the Christmas tree was taken to the Customs in evangelical circles, the Christmas tree began its triumphal march. By the end of the 19th century the Christmas tree is also attested in the Catholic regions of Germany and Austria. The first Christmas tree was in Vienna in 1814 by Fanny von Arnstein, one originating from Berlin respected Jewish Socialite, placed in their home, representatives of the nobility went in and out. Already in 1816, other sources say 1823, this tradition was taken up by Henriette of Nassau- Weilburg, wife of Archduke Karl and spread from then on in all walks of Austria. 1815 banned the Lower Austrian state government " the Abstämmeln and digging out the trees for the sake of the Corpus Christi processions, religious festivals, Christmas trees and the like ." With " like " were probably the Nicholas sapling meant as a "green tree bestekket with burning little candle on which etwelche pounds candirtes Zuckerbacht shine like the candirte the maturity cherry tree in winter shimmers " in 1782 were described.

1832 presented the German -born Harvard professor Charles Follen was the first of a Christmas tree at his home in Cambridge (Massachusetts ) and so led this custom in New England.

When the British Queen Victoria in 1840 married to Albert of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha, the Christmas tree came to London. Also, the Netherlands, Russia, especially St. Petersburg and Moscow, where he was however common only in the highest circles, and Italy owe their Christmas tree the Germans. 1837 led the Duchess Helene of Orleans, the Christmas tree in the Tuileries, later the Empress Eugenie made ​​to its spread earned. Two decades later, 35,000 Christmas trees were sold in Paris. After North America the Christmas tree arrived by German emigrants and sailors. Old U.S. newspapers report, Gustav grains have introduced the typical German custom of lighted and decorated Christmas tree in the U.S. - and soon after arriving in the state of Illinois has become his first Christmas in the United States in 1833 In the U.S., already towards the end. 19th century Christmas trees made ​​of iron. These marvels of technology were partly illuminated by gas, "Through the hollow branches of the gas and where floods else shine candles, shrugs from narrow crack the gas flame up ".

In St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, a Christmas tree was erected in 1982 for the first time.

In Austria, it has become tradition in recent decades, to bring Christmas trees to various institutions and organizations abroad as gifts. So since EU accession is an Austrian conifer in front of the EU Parliament in Brussels. Also, cutting, special road transport, installation and lighting in a capital city to be staged as a spectacle of urban Advent market, as the example of a 30 meter high 140-year old conifer, 2011 in Graz shows. Moreover, a Christmas tree is set up at the Hamburg Rathaus market every year at the beginning of the Christmas market, which is a gift of a Nordic country on the city-state.

Public Christmas Trees

Natural Christmas trees

• The largest decorated as a Christmas tree was a conifer established in 1950 in Seattle Douglas fir of 67.4 m height.
• In the Styx Forest in Tasmania was a 80 m high Eucalyptus regnans decorated and referred to as the greatest Christmas of all time on 20 December 1999. The event served as an advertisement for the protection of endangered forests.
• The General Grant Tree in Sequoia National Park, with close to 82 m the second largest giant sequoia in the world, was determined on 28 April 1926 by President Calvin Coolidge to the Nation's Christmas Tree.
• The highest with 36 meters naturally grown Christmas tree in Germany in 2005 stood on the site of the Rhenish Open Air Museum in Kommern in the Eifel. 2003 was there before the highest naturally grown Christmas tree in Germany, he was 38 m high.
• In St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, a 120 year old spruce from Good stone in Lower Austria has been prepared as Christmas tree in 2008, the hitherto highest tree in St. Peter's Square.
• In the city Wermelskirchen is a sequoia planted in 1870, which is decorated every year to one of the largest living Christmas trees in Europe.

Artificial Christmas Trees

• 2011, the largest floating Christmas tree in the world in Rio de Janeiro has been established. With 85 meters high and 3.3 million light bulbs 542 -ton steel behemoth floating on the Rodrigo de Freitas - Lake.
• In 2007, a Christmas tree was built with 76 meters height in Bucharest.
• In Lisbon and Warsaw 2005 was each a Christmas tree stands at 72 m height.
• At the Christmas market in Dortmund a 45 m high artificial tree is set up every year since 1996. On a tapered steel frame 1700 Picea abies be fixed, so that after a very large Christmas tree is created. The Christmas tree is protected by its own sprinkler system. The operator refers to this tree for several years as "the greatest Christmas tree ".
• Since 2007, with only 14 mm high, lit and fully decorated tree art also the matching counterpart in the form of the " smallest Christmas tree ", which is also shown in the window of an art gallery in the inner city.
• In the Brazilian city of Itu, there is a 84 m high Christmas tree made ​​of steel.
• In Gubbio in the Italian region Umbria, a 800 m high and 400 m wide Christmas tree made of 450 colored lights is since the 1980s on the slopes of Monte Ingono annually formed, which can be seen from 50 km away. The Guinness Book of World Records from 1991 listed him as the most unnatural Christmas tree in the world.

Christmas tree - sinking

An expansion of the learned tradition in some places by the sinking of Christmas trees in the aquatic environment. So held in Klagenfurt the diving club since the 1960s, a Christmas tree dumping at Wörthersee. From divers a decorated Christmas tree is brought into the depths. It is the thought in the lake perished. In other lakes, such as in Lake Neufeld, this custom was adopted.

The Christmas tree in songs and literary works

Since the mid 19th century, the lights tree was itself the subject of Christmas carols and narratives, usually without reference to the birth of Christ:

• O Tannenbaum
• At Christmas the lights burning
• The Christmas tree, fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen
• The Legend of the Christmas tree, poem by Marx Möller
• In the science fiction short story The Secret of titanium droid (2006) describes the German author Frank G. Gerigk as a teenager on Saturn's moon Titan with a Christmas tree from the Titan atmosphere flocculated produces "snow" crystals.