Analog-Theater 2.0

For anyone who hates the trouble involved in bringing home, setting up, and decorating a Christmas tree, you can blame Saint Boniface, a missionary who lived from 672 to 754 and took Christianity to the people of the Frankish Empire. While there, legend tells that Saint Boniface came across a group of pagans worshiping an oak tree. He cut it down and a young fir sprouted from its roots. He used the fir as a symbol of the Christian faith.

It was not until 800 years later that people would start decorating these trees for the Christmas holiday. Various guilds in Eastern Europe began decorating fir trees with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels, cheeses and paper flowers outside of their guildhalls. Years later wax candles were included as decorations.

The Christmas tree was not moved indoors until the early 19^th century. Queen Victoria recorded in her diary in 1832 the following. “After dinner…we then went into the drawing-room near the dining-room…There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees..” At that time the tradition of having a Christmas tree indoors was limited to the royal courts of Europe, but gradually it spread to the common people.

In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge began the tradition of the National Christmas Tree. A forty-eight foot tall Balsam fir was set up in the ellipse outside of the White House and was decorated with 2,500 electric bulbs in red, white and green. Since then each Christmas, the president lights up the tree on Christmas Eve. The decorations and event have grown more elaborate over the years, including the addition of a full size Nativity Scene in 1954 and occasionally live reindeer. In 1995 the lights on the National Christmas Tree were powered by solar energy.

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