The tradition of decorating evergreen trees at Christmastime first emerged in Europe in the Middle Ages. From there, it was taken to America by German immigrants, while across in England, the practice was popularized by the German spouses of King George III and Queen Victoria in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Ornamented trees have been a popular and widespread Christmas staple ever since.
The History of Decorating Christmas Trees
Precisely what we’ve hung on our Christmas trees to decorate them each year has changed over the centuries, though. The Lutheran Germans who first helped to establish the tradition typically decorated their so-called “paradise tree” (a relic of ancient religious plays and performances) with a mixture of apples, dried fruits, sweet bread, wafers, and other sugary treats, all intended to act as symbols of the biblical Garden of Eden.
The Victorians—inspired by a famous sketch of Queen Victoria’s royal family standing around a tree decorated with toys, candles, and baubles—were quick to see a market in manmade ornaments and shiny trinkets, and produced glass baubles and glittering metal toys that could be suspended from the branches using ribbons. And as manufacturing techniques improved, Christmas turned kitsch in the 20th century, with the first mass-produced strings of electrical lights and reflective plastic tinsel.