From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa
Subject: Re: Origin of XMAS wreath and XMAS tree?
Date: 23 Dec 92 15:14:15 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <1992Dec23.081928.25546@umr.edu> S083492@UMRVMA.umr.edu writes:
>viviana@igor.tamri.com (Vivian Aldridge) asks:
>
>>Hi,
>
>>Does anyone where and how the Christmas wreath and the
>>Christmas tree originated?
>
>>Thanks!
>>Vivian
>>viviana@tamri.com
>
>
>   I believe they were both symbols used by druids in their winter solistice
>celebrations.  I know, for sure, that a decorated tree was part of it and as-
>sume that wreaths were as well.  Mistletoe, btw, is also a druid tradition.
>All the symbols were borrowed by early Christians in the British Isles, in my
>opinion, to suppress the 'pagan' traditions of the native peoples.  There is
>some evidence that Christ's birth was not in December but rather in June or
>July due mainly to the fact that Roman census's and taxation were conducted in
>the summer.   Anyone else got any 'facts' on this ?
>

Subject to slight inaccuracy, the Christmas tree with candles and decorations
was not introduced until the eighteenth or nineteenth century.  The yule log
does go back to Druid times.  The Christmas tree is a transformation of the
tree of Paradise, evergreen, eternally young yet very ancient, and restored
through the Advent of the Savior to its primal glory.  We observe this in
our home by putting up the tree on December 24 (Adam and Eve Day) with just
three apples on it and an angel on top.  In the morning the children find
it all decorated, with real candles too.

The date of the birth of Jesus is a matter of dispute, and most authorities
think it unlikely that he was born on December 25.  But Christmas has not
always been centrally connected with the birth of the Christ Child.  The
eastern church still reflects the earlier sense that the real birth of the
Christ in Jesus took place with the Baptism in Jordan, about thirty years
later.  The eastern church celebrates Christmas on January 6 (by the
modern calendar) which is also Epiphany day and also Three Kings Day. Their
liturgy for this festival emphasizes the event in Jordan very strikingly.

Also, in a present sense, Christmas can be seen as the great inbreathing
point in the cycle of the year, in which the earth draws into itself while
the outer world becomes darker.  Opposite to this is the midsummer feast
of St. John the Baptist (June 24).  This feast, the only saint's day that
celebrates the birth of the saint instead of his death, points to the one
who was the forerunner of Christ, the greatest human being ever born of
woman, but who said of Christ, "He must increase and I must decrease".  
St. Johns comes at the high point of summer, after which the sun begins
to diminish in strength, giving way gradually to the opposite pole of
the year at Christmas, where in lowly darkness of earth and soul, the
Child is born on earth and in human hearts.

Thus, whatever the actual birth date of the child Jesus was -- and it still
may well have been December 25 - there is a great wisdom in the pointing
of the early church fathers to that day as the festival of the Nativity.

Gerry Palo (73237.2006@compuserve.com)
Xref: sparky soc.culture.usa:9390 soc.culture.indian:42307