The First Victorian Christmas Trees
December 15, 2020 | John Rabon | anglotopia.netComing originally from Germany, there is speculation about how it got started as a decoration. Stories have it that reformist Martin Luther created the first Christmas tree when he placed candles on an evergreen tree in 1536. Luther walked out of his home in Wittenberg one night in December and saw the stars twinkling through the tree branches and thought they looked like candles. He then placed candles on an evergreen as a symbol to remind his children of Christ coming down from the heavens to become one of us.
The first documented representation of a Christmas tree was on the cornerstone of a private home in Turckheim, Alsace (part of modern-day France) in 1576.
Over time, the popularity of the Christmas tree spread across Germany. While most people think it didn’t come to Britain and the States until the first Christmas that Prince Albert spent with Queen Victoria, he wasn’t actually the first German spouse of a monarch to do so. Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, was originally from the duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Germany. In 1800, she placed a Christmas tree in Queen’s Cottage at Kew Palace for her children. This first display of a Christmas tree by the Royal Family didn’t catch on with the public, and it would be a few decades before the practice returned with the next German-born royal consort.