Aviva Trivia

Christmas trees have simply become a part of our holiday celebrations, but  I was surprised to learn just how many superstitions are connected with the trees. I don’t think that I will take them as much for granted as I once did. There is a lot more to that decorated tree than meets the eye!

1. Deck the Halls
Before Christmas trees were brought into the house,  people thought that if they brought in greenery, magic would follow. And the magic was nothing to do with winning a lottery. These simple souls simply wanted to ensure that spring would come around yet one more time. Our Christmas tree is the modern day version.

2.  A Magical Part of the Tree
And this would be the Yule Log. There are several superstitions connected with the log, but my favorite is that it is to be chopped from the base of your Christmas tree and then allowed to cure until the following Christmas Eve.  Not only would it be festive for a roaring fire to be burning in the hearth on that special night, but good luck was ensured for the coming year.

3. A Little More Christmas Magic
I mentioned earlier, that bringing greenery into the house over the holidays would bring magic into the house. What I didn’t say is that the magic was supposed to keep away witches, ghosts and all things scary. Nice thought isn’t it!

4. Why The Tree Was Lit
What do you think about when you string the lights on the trees outside? If you are anything like me, I’m wondering if I have any burned out bulbs. And then I wonder if I should have gone with all blue lights or multi-color this year.  Well, in the times of the Romans, they lit trees for another reason. They were scared of the dark. They believed that the devil could quite possibly be lurking close by, so they would light candles on the trees just to make themselves feel better. They were obviously hoping that the light would scare away the bad spirits!

 5. The Blazing Yule Log
Well, if you don’t want bad luck for the coming year, don’t let the fire go out. Not sure how you are supposed to accomplish it, but you are supposed to keep the Yule Log burning for the Twelve Days of Christmas! The only thing that I can come up with is that you can add more wood to the fire, but a part of the original Yule Log must remain in the fireplace. Does that make sense??

6. –  Still Scared of Spirits??
I keep finding more references to spirits and how afraid people were of them. To keep them happy, I found another custom that came before the tree. Ancient people would actually decorate bushes with whatever they could find to keep these spirits in a good mood. They believed that spirits were lurking outside, searching for shelter from the frigid weather. I guess if they feared that they would move in with them until spring, so to prevent it from happening, they would decorate the bushes outside of their homes. I guess they were attempting  to stay on friendly terms.

7. Tossing Our The Tree
It was considered unlucky to throw away the tree until after the twelve days of Christmas had passed. The reason for this is thought  to be the approximate time when the Three Wise Men would have arrived in Bethlehem.

8. Decorating the Tree
When I was a kid, the only candy that was hung on the tree were candy canes and it was Santa that took care of that. When I married into a British family, I discovered that no tree was worth mentioning if it was laden with foil wrapped chocolates. I guess that this tradition started with the Victorian style of Christmas. They actually hung sugarplums on their trees.  Just in case you aren’t sure of what they are, lets just say that they were a decadent combination of fondant, dates, nuts and candied fruit. Again, the sugarplums were to ensure good luck for the coming year. And the little Victorian kids liked the idea too!

9. More Decorating Ideas
The Romans decided that they liked their trees complete with candles burning (to ward off bad spirits), but decided to go even further. They added small pieces of metal, which leads me to think that they might have been hoping that the reflections would scare the spirits as well as the light of the candles.

10.  The Legend of the Red Apple
Now this is interesting. During the X1 Century,  trees were put up in homes on Christmas Eve and decorated with red apples. The tree was known as the Tree of Paradise. I had no idea of the significance when I picked up the bags of apple ornaments last year for the tree. I simply thought that they were pretty. Had no idea that they had a legend behind them!