Sapphire Lebesque's Blog: Margin Notes - Posts Tagged "christmas-trees"

Christmas Trees became a popular thing in the USA around 1812, when John Lewis Krimmel, a European who had migrated to Philadelphia in 1809, included them in his watercolour sketchbooks. The idea of the Christmas tree also came from Quebec in 1781, introduced by Hessian soldiers from one of the myriad small states that today comprise Germany. Quebec was a British colony before it became Canada.

In the UK, the introduction of the Christmas tree in the 1840s has been widely attributed to Prince Albert, German husband of Queen Victoria, who had one brought in to Windsor Castle, but it more than likely was introduced by Queen Charlotte, wife of King George 111, who had one at her childrens' party in 1800. Queen Victoria, as a girl growing up, was certainly used to them, having one placed in her room every Christmas.

I don't feature Christmas trees in my Georgian and Regency Romances, mainly because they weren't widely adopted then, but I do have the houses decorated with evergreens, holly, yew and mistletoe, and sometimes a Yule log will be brought inside for burning.

The Christmas tree was a common concept in European countries, in German states, Slovenia and thanks to the popularity in the aristocracy, was adopted in Russia. Earlier traditions in Latvia, Estonia and German states of hanging decorated branches inside the home and buildings go back several centuries, and the idea of a fully decorated tree probably grew out of these.