Me and My Tree

[talon]

Air Berlin is allowing German passengers to fly free with their Christmas tree.

I don't have the details, but this sounds rather typical for Germans, who are inordinately attached to their trees.

Our family photo album, going back all the way to daguerreotypes and a few earlier hand-drawn pictures, consists mostly of Christmas trees and gravestones. There are pictures of people, too, but mostly trees and graves.

Most of the trees are carefully labeled with the year, and who visited and what cookies were served. There are letters tucked in that describe the trees of friends. Reading through them, even the Jehovah's Witnesses had Christmas trees. They didn't celebrate Christmas, they simply had Chrsitmas Trees bcause that's what Germans do.

The early trees held fruit and cookies and paper cones filled with candy and lit with small white candles. In the mid-1800's, my great-grandparents hung their first blown glass ornament from Lausch - an apple. My grandmother inherited that apple (and a few other ornaments) and passed it to her oldest daughter who passed it on to her grandson, so it's still in the family. It took pride of place on every tree since the first one and was joined each year by a new glass ornament. When my grandmother (and her siblings) all started houesholds of their own, their trees were seeded with the ornaments from that tree, and my mother and her siblings had their trees seeded from my grandmother's tree. My own tree holds ornaments from my great grandmother's tree, my grandmother's tree, and my mother's tree. My children will inherit ornaments from my tree, but I also started the tradition of giving them their own ornaments each year and letting them have a tree in their rooms with their own ornaments on them - now they set their trees up at work, as do I.

It has nothing to do with Christmas and everything to do with family tradition. The tree, for us, is a symbol of family. It contains memories from generations back (there would have been more generations, but my family lives a long time and has children late in life - our "generation" is 40 years, so I'm the 4th generation to use blown glass ornaments in my family; my great-grandmother was born in 1820) and each heirloom ornament comes with a story. I still use candles in place of electric lights and some of the clip on candleholders I use were used by my grandparents.

The Christmas tree has never really been a Christian symbol, it was simply a presence that permeated Christianity and has been embraced by religions that encounter it. They may hang it with their religious symbols and may make it a focal point of their celebration, may even have embraced the festivities surrounding the tree, but it is rooted deep in the German psyche and deeper in German history.

Some people claim it was a religious act, the bringing in of the tree and greenery at Christmas, even if that act began as Pagan rituals, but I think it's even deeper than that, more primal.

It transcends religion and history and speaks to a feral part of us that laughs at something as ephemeral as religion. Religions come and go, but the Tree, it is forever.

The Tree evolves, too, from it's earliest roots as greenery hung indoors to greenery tied prettily with lengths of braided ropes, then strips of colorful coth, then different greeneries tucked in - the berries of mistletoe and holly. Food was added - fruit, nuts, berries, cookies, candies. At some point, it became a tree instead of branches tied together. Spiders (so legand claims) added spider webbing that became tinsel. Tiny gifts, tokens, really, were placed in the branches of both the bundles of branches and the trees. Martin Luther King added candles to light the tree in the dark. More lasting ornaments were added and kept from year to year, and passed on to family, until we have the Tree we now erect each year for longer and longer periods of time.

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<p><lj-cut><p>Air Berlin is allowing German passengers to fly free with their Christmas tree.<p>I don't have the details, but this sounds rather typical for Germans, who are inordinately attached to their trees.<p>Our family photo album, going back all the way to daguerreotypes and a few earlier hand-drawn pictures, consists mostly of Christmas trees and gravestones. There are pictures of people, too, but mostly trees and graves.<p>Most of the trees are carefully labeled with the year, and who visited and what cookies were served. There are letters tucked in that describe the trees of friends. Reading through them, even the Jehovah's Witnesses had Christmas trees. They didn't celebrate Christmas, they simply had Chrsitmas Trees bcause that's what Germans do.<p>The early trees held fruit and cookies and paper cones filled with candy and lit with small white candles. In the mid-1800's, my great-grandparents hung their first blown glass ornament from Lausch - an apple. My grandmother inherited that apple (and a few other ornaments) and passed it to her oldest daughter who passed it on to her grandson, so it's still in the family. It took pride of place on every tree since the first one and was joined each year by a new glass ornament. When my grandmother (and her siblings) all started houesholds of their own, their trees were seeded with the ornaments from that tree, and my mother and her siblings had their trees seeded from my grandmother's tree. My own tree holds ornaments from my great grandmother's tree, my grandmother's tree, and my mother's tree. My children will inherit ornaments from my tree, but I also started the tradition of giving them their own ornaments each year and letting them have a tree in their rooms with their own ornaments on them - now they set their trees up at work, as do I.<p>It has nothing to do with Christmas and everything to do with family tradition. The tree, for us, is a symbol of family. It contains memories from generations back (there would have been more generations, but my family lives a long time and has children late in life - our "generation" is 40 years, so I'm the 4th generation to use blown glass ornaments in my family; my great-grandmother was born in 1820) and each heirloom ornament comes with a story. I still use candles in place of electric lights and some of the clip on candleholders I use were used by my grandparents.<p>The Christmas tree has never really been a Christian symbol, it was simply a presence that permeated Christianity and has been embraced by religions that encounter it. They may hang it with their religious symbols and may make it a focal point of their celebration, may even have embraced the festivities surrounding the tree, but it is rooted deep in the German psyche and deeper in German history.<p>Some people claim it was a religious act, the bringing in of the tree and greenery at Christmas, even if that act began as Pagan rituals, but I think it's even deeper than that, more primal.<p>It transcends religion and history and speaks to a feral part of us that laughs at something as ephemeral as religion. Religions come and go, but the Tree, it is forever.<p>The Tree evolves, too, from it's earliest roots as greenery hung indoors to greenery tied prettily with lengths of braided ropes, then strips of colorful coth, then different greeneries tucked in - the berries of mistletoe and holly. Food was added - fruit, nuts, berries, cookies, candies. At some point, it became a tree instead of branches tied together. Spiders (so legand claims) added spider webbing that became tinsel. Tiny gifts, tokens, really, were placed in the branches of both the bundles of branches and the trees. Martin Luther King added candles to light the tree in the dark. More lasting ornaments were added and kept from year to year, and passed on to family, until we have the Tree we now erect each year for longer and longer periods of time.<p.This isn't documentably historical; it's anecdotal based on family stories, the heirloom ornaments and photo albums, and conjecture, but it feels <i>right</i> that the Tree takes ascendancy this time of the year.<p>Actually, the Tree is still evolving. It now appears at Halloween and Easter. Someday, decorated trees will be a part of every holiday, live cut, living, or artificial. <p>Companion trees will occupy a place of honorin home, and perhaps even small, portable trees will travel with people.<p>So it makes perfect sense to me that Berlin Air is allowing Germans to fly with their beloved trees. It's just another, logical step in Tree evolution.<p></lj-cut>