Modern Christmas trees originated in 19th century Britain by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. During the Victorian era trees were the focus of the festival and were decorated with toys, sweets, candies and other sweet treats.
Young women in families with decorations of paper, silk, feathers and lace to keep the treats.
After 1865 glass trinkets, ornaments wire were started in Germany.
With the 1880 Woolworth's sold commercially produced Christmas tree decorations.
In the early real silver tinsel was used to decorate the Christmas and the modern version was started in 1950. Spiders are sometimes given credit for the construction of nets in trees which sparkled in the morning dew and sunlight that inspired the invention of tinsel.
In America fake trees gained popularity in the early twentieth century, but not in Britain until 1950. While plastic and aluminum were the trees of choice in America, the United Kingdom had a penchant for feather trees in 1920, which disappeared rapidly from 1930.
Originally in Victorian times candles were used for lights on trees. The invention of electricity has led lights in America in the mid-1880s. In 1920, candles were used infrequently.
President Franklin Pierce brought the first Christmas tree in the White House during the mid-1850. President Calvin Coolidge started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923.
The fairy at the top of the Christmas tree was originally a little figure of the Christ Child.
Christmas tree farms was born during the Depression. Nurseries that they could make a profit by cutting evergreens for Christmas trees, when they could not sell the land.
But all the Christmas trees are not left as a symbol of Christianity.
The Egyptians, Romans, Druids, and other cultures regarded the tree as a symbol of life. They brought green branches into their homes for the Winter Solstice as a symbol of the triumph of life over death.
Druid priests decorated oak trees with golden apples for their winter solstice celebrations farming.
In the middle ages, evergreen trees were decorated with red apples on December 24 as a symbol of the feast of Adam and Eve.
Even today, Christmas trees are unique to individual countries.
In Brazil where Christmas occurs in summer, pine trees are decorated with small pieces of cotton to represent falling snow.
In Greenland Christmas trees have to be imported because no trees live this far north.
In South Africa, Christmas is a summer festival. Instead of trees, the windows are often draped with sparkling cotton, wool, and tinsel.
And in the Ukraine a Christmas tree is not complete unless it has a spider and web for good luck.
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