 | Christians in Northern Europe during the Dark Ages decorated their homes and churches with evergreen sprigs. They called this “Holy Tree”, which later became known as “Holly”. It was thus named because the pointed leaves on the branches resembled Christ’s crown of thorns and the red berries signified Jesus blood that was spilled during the Crucifixion.
In 1895 a New England Telephone employee by the name of Ralph Morris took home some extra lights from the telephone switchboard. He used them to decorate his tree. In 1923 President Coolidge started the annual tradition of lighting the National Christmas Tree at the White House.
Donner and Blixen were originally named Dunder and Blixem in 1823’s publication of Clement Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. These are the Dutch words for “Thunder” and “Lightning”. In 1837 Blixem was changed to Blixen to rhyme with vixen. Dunder was also changed to Donder. When Clement Moore re-published “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in his 1844 book, he changed Blixen to Blitzen. Blitzen is the German word for “Thunder”. Johnny Marks made the final change in his “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Song” from Donder to Donner, which is German for “Thunder”.
The Christmas tree began as a German tradition. Legend has it that St. Boniface found a human sacrifice being made under an evergreen tree on Christmas Eve. He cut down the tree. O Tannenbaum came to England when Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, brought the tradition with him from his native Germany. Hessians (German mercenaries) are believed to have brought the Christmas tree with them to America during the Revolution of 1776.
“Xmas” is a common abbreviation for the term Christmas. The Greek letter “C”, which is pronounced chi, looked like a Roman “X”. It became the standard symbol for Christ. When “Xmas” was written for Christmas the word would still be pronounced Christmas, although today many do pronounce “Xmas” as ex-mass.
In 18th century England, Christmas was outlawed. An English candy maker still wanted to commemorate the special day. He crafted the first candy cane. It was meant to resemble the shepherd’s staff. Remember – shepherds were the first to discover the Christ child after his birth.
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