Symbols of celebration

By L.F.

EVERGREEN trees were once a pagan symbol of life brought inside the home to celebrate the winter solstice. During the Renaissance, in Latvia and Germany, it became a Protestant tradition to decorate evergreen trees for Christmas. The modern Christmas tree, festooned with lights, ornaments and presents evolved around 200 years ago; the centrepiece of the family-orientated Dickensian Christmas so familiar in popular culture.

In the 1870s, as Adam Gopnik recounts in his new book, “Winter”, the domestic celebration transitioned into something more secular and commercialised, shifting from “the Christmas of the heart and hearth, to the department-store Christmas, the Christmas of the city street.” Nearly 150 years later, enormous and elaborate Christmas trees are the focal point of festive celebrations in cities and towns across the Christian world.

In today’s materialistic society, many public Christmas trees lay claim to be the tallest, the wackiest or the most beautiful. Some are victims of diplomacy, carrying a political burden as well as their thousands of baubles. Others have been scorned by environmentalists or met with disapproval from those who should adore them. Each has a story to tell.

Dortmund and Neumunster in Germany regularly vie to have the tallest real Christmas tree, but the competition for the most gigantic artificial tree is in Latin America between Aracaju in Brazil and Mexico City. This year Mexico won, with a 362 ft (110 metre)-high cone wrapped in an astounding 49 miles (82km) of small lights. Perhaps the most spectacular Christmas tree is Rio de Janeiro’s giant floating construction in Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon. This flashy tourist attraction, provided by Bradesco Seguros, Brazil’s largest insurance company, features a light show of the four seasons which was enhanced by an extravagant fireworks display at the official lighting ceremony on December 1st.

Cities in the southern hemisphere invariably opt for artificial trees. Some environmentalists believe that the PVC is damaging to the environment and that having a real tree reduces your carbon footprint, but others refute this claim and prefer a recyclable option to chopping down forests. In Sydney, where a real tree would not survive the searing December heat, the City of Sydney aims to be “green” by reusing its artificial tree and decorations each year, using LED lighting and turning it off in the small hours to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Real trees are more common in chilly Europe. The authentic pine needles perhaps encourage a more traditional approach. London’s Christmas tree, which stands in simple lights with understated beauty in Trafalgar Square, is given each year by Norway; a tradition since 1947 to thank the British for their support in the second world war. (The Norwegians are generous with their spruces—they also give one to Washington, DC.) The Vatican erects a modest 78 ft-high tree in St Peter’s Square alongside a traditional Catholic crib scene. A Christmas tree was only introduced in 1982; before then the Holy See had shunned it as a foreign, pagan symbol.

Some European cities have dipped a festive toe in modernity, and been crushed with protests. Last year Rome city council had to dismantle a white papier-mâché tree in Piazza Venezia, next to the Roman Forum, following a public backlash. One senator called it the “epitome of bad taste”. This year, Brussels has created a chunky, geometric light-box as its Christmas tree in the Grand Place. The structure, which replaces the usual towering pine tree from the Ardennes, has been criticised as an attempt to be religiously correct. Thousands have signed a petition against it. The tourism councillor told the BBC it was designed to reflect the “avant-garde character” of the city.

South Korea has a trickier time. Its three illuminated Christmas trees on the border with North Korea are at the front line of a diplomatic battle. Last year, North Korea said lighting the trees would be an act of “psychological warfare”, claiming that South Korea (whose population is 30% Christian) was using religious propaganda against a country which considers religion a challenge to leadership. South Korea decided not to illuminate the lights as a gesture of respect following the death of Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s leader, and also because they feared military retaliation.

The Christmas celebrations are much merrier in the United States. In Washington, DC, a jolly President Obama and his family lit the National Christmas Tree in the President’s Park as part of a live televised entertainment programme on December 6th. The message is one of peace and unity in an all-American embrace—56 smaller evergreens (one for each state, the five territories, and the District of Columbia) surround the tree in a pathway of peace. The Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree in New York is a more glamorous affair, crowned with a 10ft-tall Swarovski star studded with 25,000 crystals. (Swarovski crystals also adorn the chic Galeries Lafayette Christmas tree in Paris.) The sparkling tree, squeezed in-between Manhattan’s skyscrapers overlooking a shimmering ice rink, has grown from a haphazard 20ft tree first raised by construction workers in the Great Depression, to one of New York’s glitziest attractions.

These decorated evergreens are sometimes political statements and often major tourist attractions for commercial gain. But as symbols of celebration they have a near-universal appeal, for believers and non-believers, Christians and non-Christians—some American Jews even put up decorated trees as part of Hannukah. They will remain, in all their wondrous incarnations, the centrepiece of Christmas festivities for years to come.