Some trees (or at least small tops of them or branches of fir trees) were hung from the ceiling, mainly in some parts of Germany, some Slavic countries and parts of Poland. Sometimes they were carried around from house to house, rather than being displayed in a home. It's possible that the wooden pyramid trees were meant to be like Paradise Trees. If you couldn't afford a real plant, people made pyramids of woods and they were decorated to look like a tree with paper, apples and candles. Some early Christmas Trees, across many parts of northern Europe, were cherry or hawthorn plants (or a branch of the plant) that were put into pots and brought inside so they would hopefully flower at Christmas time. were added) and it even got a new nickname the 'Christbaum' or 'Christ Tree'. In what's now Germany (was the Holy Roman Empire then), the Paradise Tree had more decorations on it (sometimes communion wafers, cherries and later pastry decorations of stars, bells, angels, etc. The plays told Bible stories to people who could not read.Ĭhristmas Trees as they came to be now started around the late 1400s into the 1500s. It was often paraded around the town before the play started, as a way of advertising the play. The Paradise Tree represented the Garden of Eden. In early church calendars of saints, 24th December was Adam and Eve's day. These were used in medieval German Mystery or Miracle Plays that were acted out in front of Churches during Advent and on Christmas Eve. It probably began about 1000 years ago in Northern Europe.Ĭhristmas Trees might well have started out as 'Paradise Trees' (branches or wooden frames decorated with apples). Nobody is really sure when Fir trees were first used as Christmas trees. However, they were quite different to what we think of as Christmas Trees now. The Romans used Fir Trees to decorate their temples at the festival of Saturnalia. Pre-Christian/Pagans used branches of evergreen trees to decorate their homes during the winter solstice, as it made them think of the spring to come. Evergreen trees (and other evergreen plants) have traditionally been used to celebrate winter festivals (pre-Christian/pagan and Christian) for thousands of years.