Christmas Trees Are Not Pagan
a Brief History of the Christmas Trees, White Supremacist Propaganda, & Popular Related Lies
You’ve probably heard the rumor - maybe you’ve even spread it yourself - Christmas trees are pagan.
This is how it usually goes: when the Christians came to Europe, they wanted to convert pagans to Christianity, so they made a conscious choice to take pagan symbols, like a decorated tree for Yule or Saturnalia or Sol Invictus or Hilaria (it changes on who you ask) and said, “This is Christian now and we will call it the Christmas tree!”
But none of this is true.
The assumption that there was a decorated tree, specifically for a pagan winter holiday, that the Christians could have taken to rebrand as a Christmas tree is baseless.
Some take a more nuanced approach and claim that the tree is an evolution of the pre-Christian tradition of pagans taking branches into their home in the winter to celebrate and rejoice that not everything has died during this desolate and dark time. While it is a more nuanced approach, it still lacks scholarly evidence to support it.
Perhaps a part of this misinformation spreading so well is that people simply do not understand the geography and timelines of the regions they’re referring to. Perhaps people are desperate to find meaning in a tradition from a religion that has left them with deep scars. Perhaps they just think it sounds cooler than believing it’s Christian. Whatever the reason, it is, tragically, still misinformation.
To understand how we have ended up in this world of misinformation, we must travel back and understand the very basics of these festivals, the nationalists who popularized the myths, the Nazis who cemented it, and the way we disseminate it now.
Dr. Andrew Mark Henry, the historian behind the popular YouTube channel ReligionforBreakfast, covered the history of Christmas Trees in an excellent video, which is still available on YouTube. He also covers, as shown below, why Christmas falls on the 25th of December. As this is the basis for many of the arguments about conflating Pagan and Christian tree traditions, it’s important to take a moment to understand that history.
Essentially, there are two prevailing academic theories, as defined by research fellow C. Phillipp E. Nothaft of The Warburg Institute in London. The older theory, favored by the Internet, is the “History of Religions Theory” (HRT), while the more academically rigorous theory, as discussed by Dr. Henry, is the “Calculation Theory” (CT).¹⁷
While this article is explicitly targeted at misinformation about the Christmas tree, understanding these two theories will help you untangle how we got into this mess, particularly as we reach our discussion of the Puritans.
But let’s start with the holidays that they claim the tree is stolen from and work our way forward.
Saturnalia
Saturnalia, the Roman holiday celebrating the deity Saturn/Saturnus, was originally held on the 17th of December but later extended; this was ended by Augustus, who limited the festivities to just three days, as the civil courts had to remain closed for the full celebrations. Eventually, it was increased again to five. Some scholars argue that this was due to changes in the dates introduced with the Julian calendar in 45 BCE.
In 1938, Jennie M. Churco published an article in The Classical Outlook, a journal on teaching, titled “Christmas and the Roman Saturnalia,” which crystallized this period’s understanding of how Roman pagan traditions became Christian. However, as with many, she covers uncertainty with assumptions - and despite its flaws, it is precisely her worldview that has remained popular.
She traces the tradition from Catullus’ (c. 84 – c. 54 BCE) Epithalamium (281-292), how “the gods are described as decorating the home of Peleus with trees, including laurel and cypress, for a joyous occasion”. However, this is an erroneous mention as it truly has nothing to do with the celebration of Saturnalia.
She continues with descriptions of decor with evergreens from Libanus (c. 314 CE, Turkiye), Tertullian (160 CE, Tunisia), and Chrysostom (death in 407 CE, Turkiye).⁶ While interesting in the context of illustrating the history of the use of evergreens as decor, there is no correlation to Saturnalia.
In the 4th century, she mentions, but does not cite, a time of Christians being reprimanded by Church authorities for decorating their homes in the style of pagans. She assumes this is done with greenery as described above.⁶ Perhaps she is referencing a list found in the 1912 book Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, by Clement A. Miles, which provides the same scholars in the same order, though this is speculation on my part.
Taking place soon after the end of the war between Rome and Persia, led by the last Constantinian emperor Julian, the Council of Laodicea covered a number of topics, including feasting with non-Christians... Canon 37, “It is not lawful to receive portions sent from the feasts of Jews or heretics, nor to feast together with them.” Canon 39, “It is not lawful to feast together with the heathen, and to be partakers of their godlessness.”⁹
Churco believes this to be specific to Saturnalia, “In 362 A.D the Council of Laodicea forbade Christians to celebrate the Saturnalia. In 1110 A.D. pagan observances had so far been revived that a fast was ordered for Christmas rather than a feast.”⁶
She continued Tertullian’s denunciation of the celebration of the birth of idols, where “every pomp of the devil is frequented”.¹⁰
Churco argues that pagan Romans used candles to celebrate the light of the solstice and, by extension, that Christians must use candles to celebrate the light of Christ.⁶ Churco also makes connections to the Yule log, which we’ll cover later.
While there is evidence, as we discussed above, of decoration with greenery taking place in the winter (often for the Kalends), scholars have moved on from the claim that such practices were the source of the Christmas tree.³²
Dr. Peter Gainsford, of the Kiwi Hellenist, has covered the various pagan sources in numerous articles and, in his 2015 edition, cites evidence of early Christians celebrating Saturnalia alongside Christmas as late as the 5th century.⁸
Dr. Gainsford says it best, “The fact that Saturnalia might have had some chance to have an influence on Christmas isn’t evidence that it did.”⁹
The reality is that there is no evidence that Saturnalia specifically involved decorating a tree or even using evergreen boughs as decorations.
The Christmas tree simply could not have originated with Saturnalia.
Sol Invictus
The cult of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun or Invincible Sun) was also found in Rome, though the Chronograph of 354 of Filocalus is the sole attestation of their celebration taking place on December 25th, recorded as N INVICTI CM XXX or Natalis Invicti Circenses Missus 30, translating to Birthday of the Unconquered One 30 Chariot Races Ordered. Coincidentally, it is the oldest mention of the 25th being celebrated as the birth of Jesus (Christmas).
However, it should be noted that Dr. Steven E. Hijmans, Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Alberta in Canada and author of Sol: Image and Meaning of the Sun in Roman Art and Religion, casts aspersions upon even this mention, as Sol was not the only deity given the epithet invictus and that the December 25th date is given no specific deity to which to refer.
“There is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on December 25th antedated the celebration of Christmas, let alone any that indicates that Aurelian had a hand in its institution”.¹²
“VIII kal. Ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae” –
“Eighth day before the kalends of January [December 25] Birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea.
Despite widespread Internet references to Christmas trees, there appear to be no citations indicating that trees were felled and used to celebrate such a day. There is also no support for the claim that they decorated trees for the day.
The Christmas tree simply could not have originated with Sol Invictus.
Yule
Yule is perhaps the most quoted of all the festivals that claim to be the source of Christmas. The first attestation of Yule comes from a calendar of (Christian) Saints’ days from the 500s.⁸
Bede, the very same monk who is responsible for the documentation of Eostre, provides the second in his Reckoning of Time,
“In olden time the English people - for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other nations’ observanc eof the year nd ye tbe silent abiouyt my own nation’s - calculated their month according to the course of the moon.... The first month, which the Latins call January is Giuli....December, Giuili, the same name by which January is called. They began the year on the 8th kalends of January [25 December], when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to by the heathen word Modranecht, that is, “mother’s night”, because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night”.¹³
And while he is free to suspect such activity, there is no evidence or documentation to support it. Documentation comes in many forms; while people often erroneously believe that written documentation is the sole form of evidence that scholars rely on, there are many more: dance, art, textiles, architecture -- all are worthy means of evaluating history.
Even though Yule, or a variant of the name, became the word used to refer to Christmas in Scandinavia and across parts of Europe, there is scant evidence of its impact on Christmas trees.
The terminology of Yule, in reference to the Christian Christmas rather than the supposed pagan festival, became fairly common, even in English, so we have a lot of people mixing up history simply because of the terminology. Why wouldn’t you believe the Christmas Tree was actually pagan if you hear it referred to as the Yule Tree?
There is simply no credible evidence of pre-Christian pagans decorating specifically for Yule with a tree or greenery.
Despite the holiday’s popularity in pagan circles, which has cemented these ideas as fact, we simply do not have nearly as much evidence of it as people believe. Few people realize that much of the material we have on Norse mythology comes from after the time of Christianization.
Yule Log
Churco claims that the burning of the Yule log became a public ceremony in the 16th century, though, like many, she provides no evidence. Likewise, none is given for the claim that at one point English Christians substituted a “very large candle” for a Yule log.⁶ Perhaps she is referencing an English Christmas tradition wherein a candle must remain lit all Christmas Day to ward off bad luck, but this is not clear.¹⁸ Miles Clements, who published a book on Christmas in 1912, does provide citations for this tradition of replacing the log with a large candle.³²
The Yule Log, as investigated by Dr. Gainsford, is often claimed to have first been mentioned in 1184; however, this is a fallacious reading of the text, which is an edict from a bishop for the parishes of Ahlen, “arborem in Nativitate Domini ad festivum ignem suum adducendam esse.”⁸ This is specifically a Christmas log with no mention of Yule being made.
Alexander Tille, a German nationalist philosopher in the vein of Grimm, further discusses the history of the Yule log in his 1899 book, Yule and Christmas, Their Place in the Germanic Year, beginning with the very same parish priests:
“We know from a Weistum that (a.d. 1184) one of the privileges of the manse of Ahlen, Westphalia, was the right of delivery to it of a whole tree for the festive fire at Christmas eve. But that fire is at the same time denoted as the clergyman’s private festive Christmas fire; and in another Wetstum, of Riol and Velle on the Mosella, the Scheffe is said to be entitled to a Winnachtploech, whilst a third Wetstum, of Tavern on the Mosella, remarks: “Item ein bochg zu hawen vff Christabend vor den Christbraten ;” so that we have no more to do with a festive fire, but merely with a fire \ for roasting meat in the kitchen, if there was one, and if the roasting was not rather done over the fire of the common room.”⁷
These are all direct references to Christmas and the private celebration thereof. No pagan holiday referenced in the slightest.
Tille isn’t shy about the rebuke of his contemporaries’ proclivity to invent history for the Yule log: “Ulrich Jahn’s generalizations, according to which a pre-Christian winter-solstice fire would have to be supposed as a general custom, are void of any historical foundation, and merely represent fantastic speculations.”⁷
England’s first mention of the log is in the 1600s with the poet Robert Herrick, who also mentions it explicitly as a Christmas log:
COME, bring with a noise, / My merrie merrie boyes, / The Christmas Log to the firing. ⁸
I speculate on how much of this is the result of adopting the term Yule as an alternative to the word Christmas. However, my personal speculation aside, there is no evidence whatsoever that the burning of a Christmas log had any impact on the creation of the Christmas tree.
The Christmas tree simply could not have originated with the Yule Log.
Romantics, Victorians, & Volkists
The Romantics (from approximately 1798-1837) and the later Victorians (1837-1901) were obsessed with creating mythologies that weren’t exactly true. Much like today, rumors and speculation flew around and were quickly ingrained in the public consciousness as fact, with nary a citation or source to be found.
Look, for example, at the Easter Rabbit and Ostara. In 1834, the Brothers Grimm published Deutsche Mythologie, which featured numerous national myths, including a discussion on Ostara. In 1874, Adolf Holtzman published his own Deutsche Mythologie with a never-before-heard or seen narrative of Ostara with a rabbit. Stephen Winick, PHD folklorist who published research on Ostara & the Hare, points out that no single discussion of Ostara and rabbits predate Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, but less than 30 years later, people were publishing articles that cited this story as ancient without any evidence.¹
The Brothers Grimm are a shining example of this time period: linguists, ethnographers, and vehement nationalists.
“Tales, songs, and beliefs of German peasants were, for the Grimm’s, splintered remnants of the mythology of pagan ancestors suppressed by the medieval church. Their aim was to reconstruct this mythology by piecing together the splinters for the education of the people. According to the brothers, language, religion, and poetry, as well as heroic virtues manifested in the ancestral epic, would make the Germans conscious of their national values and effective in the struggle for national survival and independence in their age of political turbulence.”²
The Brothers Grimm were active in the early days of the Völkisch movement, which would live through the end of Hitler’s regime, and they were not alone in their desperation for national myths.
In 1858, Johannes Marbach published Die Heilige Weihnachtszeit, or the Holy Christmas Time, which claimed that Christmas was actually pagan and therefore so were the Christmas trees.¹⁹
He cites a much older reference, which we will discuss below, from Protestant theologian and professor, Johan Konrad Dannhauer, who published his Katechismusmilch, or Milk of the Catechism, in the mid-1600s.¹⁶
Marbach continues, “Since the emergence of ‘corrupted Christianity,’ these practices have, in fact, been taken up into visible customs, whereas true Christianity rejects such idolatrous worship. Thus, only what Christianity has taken over from paganism remains, and what has become most closely linked to the celebration of Christmas night is the Christmas tree; the other, earlier pagan ideas and customs were, by contrast, so little aligned with the Christian drama of redemption that the Church was forced to forbid them. The Christmas tree, however, was tolerated.”¹⁹
Marbach, like so many others, was motivated in his writings by his nationalism: “The intimate connection of Germandom with Christendom inspired a new era for the German Volk, demonstrated by the Tree of Christ.”¹⁹
Joe Perry writes, “German Christmas, they believed, was organic and unique, a synthesis of the winter solstice rituals of primeval Teutonic tribes, the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus, and the age-old customs that defined German character.”²⁰
But they weren’t just publishing these ideas in obscure academic volumes and publications.
“As a Frankfurt journalist wrote in 1885, “that and how the Christian holiday and many of its favorite and volkstümlichen [popular] practices are connected with ancient Germanic sacrificial festivities and other holy pagan customs; what the Christ tree is and what it means—these are the typical subjects in the conventional Christmas articles of many newspapers.”²⁰
Journalist and author of 1924: The Year that Made Hitler, Peter Ross Range, writes in a footnote that “Völkisch is very hard to define and almost untranslatable into English. The word has been rendered as popular, populist, people’s, racial, racist, ethnic-chauvinist, nationalistic, communitarian (for Germans only), conservative, traditional, Nordic, romantic – and it means, in fact, all of those.”⁴
Scholars theorize that Völkism is not just a single ideology, but an amalgamation of ideologies that resulted in the eventual creation of Nazism, as one offshoot, and its eventual transformation into the white supremacist ideologies of today.
While the Brothers Grimm were not necessarily Völkisch themselves, their work remained an essential part of forging the national heroic and mythological identity of the modern German Empire, which had newly unified in 1871. It primed Germany’s citizens for the tumult of the fall of the German monarchy in 1918. It provided a central tenet around which the new Weimar Republic and later Nazi regime could spin.
“Ideologists of the Third Reich consciously exploited Jacob Grimm’s idea that tales are direct descendants of German mythology. They saw tale heroes as pioneers of the racist causes and models for the desirable “fundamental German” prototype. They demanded that every German household own a copy of the Grimm collection, “This most important work among our sacred books,” and that every school use it as a textbook.”²
The stories of the Brothers Grimm were not merely tales told by random German peasants as they would have you believe. While later scholarship revealed that many were not even of German origin, these tales were intended to create a national identity to which German citizens could cling.
The Völkists were similarly obsessed with these national myths, stories, and archetypes, believing that it was only the Aryans who were pure, and as such, it was vital to strengthen this connection to the Fatherland. The Christmas tree was merely one way to do this.²¹
The work begun by the 19th-century nationalists, which was based on nothing more than fantasy and speculation, was ready to be completed by the Nazis in the 20th century.
The Nazis
It would be impossible to untangle the web of why we believe Christmas trees are pagan without addressing the Nazi Regime. In many teachings, Nazis religion is left out, seen as either vaguely Christian or a-religious. After all, they were persecuting Jews for both racial and religious reasons, and their fellow Christians of numerous denominations (Catholic, Protestant, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and others) were put in concentration camps, tortured, and put to death. And many of their victims were Christian but persecuted for other reasons, like their sexuality, race, or disability.
Nazis fell, ideologically, along a scale of those who believed Christianity was Aryanized/Aryan and those who believed that the truth was to go back to pre-Christian Germanic Paganism, which was “truly Aryan”. On both fronts, they were determined to make Christmas less “Judaic” and more “Germanic”.³
No matter where they fell spiritually, Nazis were highly aware of how advantageous these holidays were to them. While the regime introduced new holidays and festivals, such as the ‘Day of National Socialist Assumption of Power’ on January 30th and Hitler’s birthday on April 20th, these new creations had nothing on the power of the beloved Christmas.⁵ After all, “The Nazi intelligentsia clearly believed that the family rituals performed around the Christmas tree engendered an emotional surplus, which could be manipulated to construct and sustain a sense of national feeling and a ‘fascist self.’”²⁰
Christmas had been a central tenet of many aspects of modern German culture, especially as it was used to foster national identity during World War I.²⁰ Nazis understood that these holidays would be an instrumental tool in cementing their ideologies into the minds of the common man in Germany and across the world.
“The Third Reich made strenuous efforts to absorb into its ideology not just the Christmas Tree, but the whole of the Christmas festival, which National Socialism traced back to its supposedly Germanic roots and then used, as and when required, as a ‘Festival of National Unity’ [VolksgemeinschaftJ, ‘Feast of the German Family’ and a symbol of war and sacrifice.”⁵
“The most important departments involved were Joseph Goebbels’s Ministry for National Enlightenment and Propaganda, the Department of the Führer’s Personal Assistant (the so-called ‘Rosenberg Office’) and, under the control of Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, the ‘SS-Ancestral Heritage’ [SS-Ahnenerbe]. In these institutions anthropologists busied themselves with interpreting traditional festivals to suit National Socialist ideologies; later they also created customs and traditions ‘characteristic of the race’.”⁵
While there were outliers on either end of the ideological spectrum, the Nazi government intended to appeal to all: “The recovery of mythic Nordic rites hardly ruled out appeals to the Christian aspects of the holiday. Parroting the conclusions of late nineteenth-century ethnographers, Nazi loyalists asserted that the “merging of national characteristics and Christianity” exemplified in Christmas revealed the origins of “the German character.”...... “Christ on the cross, and Odin on the World-Ash … there is something equally divine in both images,” claimed one Frodi Ingolfson Wehrmann, a member of the occult group Svastika-Zirkel”.²⁰
While there would eventually be internal rifts within German society as the Nazis continued to “de-Christianize” Christmas in order to “Aryanize” it, the Nazi party was aware of this. They were relying on the 19th century idea that “neo-paganism promised to revive the ancient spiritual connections that could still unite the fractured German nation, if only Germans could return to a time “when the feeling of unity with native soil and nature was still alive, the desire for light and strength had strong roots, and Yule festivities remained a sacred manifestation of God.”²²
This use of the term ‘Yule’ as opposed to ‘Christmas’ was intentional so as to further associate the time not with Christianity but with the pre-Germanic tribes and their suspected celebrations.
The Nazis did not merely publish a few odd articles here or there; they were prolific in producing content for both scholars and laypeople.
“Ideas about the pagan aspects of the holiday percolated down to a mass audience in articles, books, and documentary films in the 1920s and 1930s, continuing a process of popularization evident since the 1880s.”²⁰
It became part of the curriculum in German schools, hence why your Oma and Opa believed it to be true, “Teachers received a Nazified Christmas curriculum for schoolchildren of all ages in the journals of the National Socialist Teachers’ Union, which taught that school celebrations should embody “the experience of the community of life, struggle, and fate of the German people.” Texts for advanced students again emphasized “Aryan-Germanic” culture as the source of Christmas traditions. An extreme version of “blood and soil” ideology found expression in the highly ritualized celebrations of the SS, who swore “light oaths” to Hitler, the German family, and the national community while lighting candles on the “Yule Tree.”²⁰
Even worse,
“Ambitious plans for reinventing holidays and festivals filled the pages of the journal Die neue Gemeinschaft: Das Parteiarchivfür nationalsozialistische Feier- und Freizeitgestaltung (The New Community: The Party Archive for the Organization of National Socialist Celebrations and Leisure Time), published by the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP). This publication, distributed to party organizations “for internal use only,” was just one part of an extensive media apparatus of magazines, journals, newspapers, newsreels, radio broadcasts, Christmas books, and holiday ephemera; all brought the invented traditions promulgated by the RMVP to millions of German citizens.”
The Nazis gave out free Christmas trees as part of their ‘winter relief programs’, where they would distribute food and clothing²⁰, and the newsreels of the Nazis, armband and all, became a common image across the regime to prove that only the Nazis could save and preserve the German people and their culture.²² And the number of trees was shocking: 741,436 in 1934-35 and 695,681 in 1935-36.²²
Pin issued for a 1933 Christmas charity drive in Germany. It was probably issued by the Winterhilfswerk Des Deutschen Volkes, the major public charity established by the Nazi Party in 1933. In addition to fundraising, the organization was used by the Nazi regime to promote Volksgemeinshaft, a sense of community among the German people. They often issued pins and badges for donors to wear to show their support.
A 1939 postcard of Adolf Hitler with a Christmas tree by Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s official photographer and close associate.
Lest you think that only the male soldiers and leaders were part of this, as I’ve been discussing on my Instagram, let me put this idea to rest.
“The Nazification of the family Christmas was primarily women’s work. As pedagogy expert Auguste Reber-Gruber put it, the German mother was the “priestess” and “protector of house and hearth,” and under her moral and physical direction, traditional family holidays would “bring the spirit of the German home back to life.”....Mothers and children could help revitalize German culture by making homemade decorations like “Odin’s Sun Wheel,” or by baking holiday cookies shaped like a loop (a fertility symbol) or a “Sig-rune: the sign of struggle and victory.”²⁰
This wasn’t a coincidence: the notion that a true-believing Nazi could be identified by the way that they decorated their home, including at Christmas time, was espoused by Nazi propagandists like Wolfgan Schultz, who “declared that everyday objects had profound historical/racial meaning”.²⁰
The government gave explicit meanings to the symbols they were encouraging; “The horseshoe-arch is the symbol of the farmhouse, of loyalty to blood and soil. The lucky horseshoe resembles the sign of the primal bow; it represents the shortest arc of the sun at the winter solstice, and is therefore also a pre-Christmas symbol......In many forms, the circling sun-wheel is represented. As a wheel-cross, it also points us to the two solstices. The six-pointed star contains a secret: The most commonly used signs for life and death. As a swastika, it has today become the symbol of the struggle of our Greater German Reich for its secure future and its eternal existence.”
About symbols, from Vorweihnachten (National Socialist Advent calendar), 1942, Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachfolg
Nazi Propaganda featuring a Christmas tree in the shape of the Lebenrune (life rune).
Christmas trees during the Third Reich weren’t just decorated with the standard baubles we see today. In an effort to continue to ‘strengthen’ their ties to pre-Germanic paganism, Nazis heavily encouraged the use of runes like the swastika (which they claimed was Germanic in origin), the sig rune, the othala rune, etc., as a means of decorating not only the home, but the Christmas tree. They wanted decorations to be homemade; a ‘return to tradition’, if you will.
This was all part of their larger ideology that Jews had corrupted the sacred time of Christmas with their evil capitalism. In the early days of the regime, there were targeted holiday boycotts of Jewish-owned stores, especially during Christmas time, as a means of economically starving their German Jewish neighbors, whom they believed were responsible for the ills of the world.²⁰
But, regardless of their propaganda for Germans to rely on the labor of the women of the home for decor, Nazi decorations on the tree and around the house were so popular that the Party began “efforts to enforce a “law for the protection of national symbols” after 1933, which banned the “misuse” of Nazi symbols, including various forms of Nazified Christmas kitsch.”²⁰
There were Nazi sanctioned items, however, which were intentionally ‘not kitsch’. Many were produced by Himmler’s porcelain company Allach, which relied on slave labor from the concentration camp Dachau.²³
Adolf Hitler gives a speech at a Christmas party at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich on 27 December 1925, one year after his release from Landsberg Prison and the refounding of the Nazi party in February earlier that year.
It cannot be overstated how vital the Christmas tree was to Nazi propaganda: “As late as 1944, Martin Bormann, the “Führer’s deputy,” ordered Gau and Kreis Leaders to make a special effort to give all families with children a Christmas tree because of its “powerful symbolic meaning” and its effect on the popular mood; shortages and problems with the rail system, however, meant that families without children and single Germans would have to make do with a single pine branch.”²⁰
The Christmas tree, after all, was believed to be “a primordial Germanic symbol of the tree of life”, as declared by the Army Chief of Staff in 1939, Wilhelm Keitel²⁰, and so Nazi Germany did all it could to ensure that it was an active part of every celebration.
There were even Christmas trees in concentration camps for the officers to enjoy. Pictured below is SS officer Karl Höcker lighting a candle on a Christmas tree only weeks before the liberation of Auschwitz, as documented in the Höcker album available via the Holocaust Museum.
1933 Christmas tree, Berlin Sportpalast.
But the Puritans...
You would be correct if you said that the 18th-century folklorists were not the first to claim Christmas trees were pagan; After all, they came long after the Puritans. It is not uncommon to hear claims of the theft of Christmas and related subject matter on the tongues of devout Christians. This isn’t limited to one denomination, though groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses and fundamentalist Protestants are most likely to repeat it. Ironically, many opinion pieces published in Catholic newsletters and on Catholic blogs make the same claim, though for a different reason.
However, what separated the Puritans from the later Romantics and Victorians was that they rarely attempted to link these so-called pagan traditions to any specific ancient people or cult. For them, it was enough to note that such practices fell outside the bounds of Scripture. Labeling a custom “pagan” did not require tracing it to any specific pre-Christian society; the term functioned chiefly as a shorthand for a tradition without biblical authorization and therefore unsuitable for Christian worship.
The aforementioned researcher, C. P. E. Nothaft, traces this “skepticism” of the dating of the calendar to “sixteenth-century Reformation, which inspired some Protestant, and in particular Calvinist, scholars to attack the historical basis of feasts like Christmas in new and pathbreaking ways.”¹⁷
Largely born from their skepticism of the date, they soon cast aspersions on the associated festivities. These criticisms predate even the creation of the modern Christmas tree, though as soon as they found out about it, they did not approve and subsequently labeled it as pagan.
On Syncretism
Syncretism refers to the merging of identities to create a new cultural identity as they take on aspects of the dominant culture while maintaining a connection to their culture of origin.
Christians absolutely engaged in syncretism, and as a result, there are pre-Christian traditions that have remained alive. Look no further than the Slavic tradition of pysanky. The tradition of creating these intricately designed eggs by alternating between wax and dye can be traced back centuries, with archeological evidence of eggs dipped in wax being found dating back to the 10th-13th centuries.³¹ However, after the Christianization of the region, pysanky became associated with the celebration of Easter.
There are famous examples of syncretism, but the Christmas tree simply isn’t one of them.
On Trees, Greens, & Decoration
Before we get into the Christmas tree, we should cover what the Christmas tree is not. People often claim that the tree comes from pre-Christian Germanic tribes who worshipped trees. There is absolutely truth to the fact that some Germanic peoples did venerate or assign sacred meaning to certain trees, but there is no evidence that this pre-Christian tree reverence is why we have a Christmas tree today.
By the time the Christmas tree developed, the region that invented it had been Christian for centuries. The custom arose within a Christian cultural framework, not as some vestige of pagan worship. There is, in short, no demonstrable line connecting pre-Christian religions to the modern Christmas tree.
Others claim that because pre-Christian Europeans decorated their homes with evergreens during the winter, this must be the origin of the Christmas tree. Those making these claims often do not show any evidence of such a practice, but let’s assume it is true. Many cultures use greenery as a symbol of all manner of things—but this, again, does not mean those practices directly evolved into the Christmas tree tradition. Similarities in symbolism do not automatically imply historical continuity.
Humans often share traditions, values, and beliefs even when there is no direct connection between their cultures. This happens because all humans experience the same fundamental experiences: birth, pain, love, grief, seasonal cycles, and death. Because of these shared experiences, different societies frequently create similar symbols and rituals independently, even if they appear similar.
And we can intuitively understand why the people making these claims of theft only accuse Christians of stealing the tradition from pagans, but not pagan groups of stealing it from one another.
People are more than understanding of the hypothetical Yule in Norway and Saturnalia in Rome, both having evergreens, even with no connection between the two.
So, if the Christmas tree is not pagan, where did it come from?
The Origins of the Christmas Tree
It’s important, as always, to define our terms, and so we must ask ourselves, “What is a Christmas tree?” Most of us can picture one, even if we all picture a slightly different variation. The basic shape of the tree, at least according to most scholars, is an evergreen tree decorated with the specific intent of celebrating a holiday.
Now that we’re a few hundred years into the tradition of Christmas trees, they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but if we travel back to its early days, it looked like an evergreen tree, decorated explicitly for the date of Christmas, usually with fabric, foods like sweets or dried meat, fruits, and paper crafts like chains, flowers, or baubles.
There are a few precursors that are relevant to the creation of the modern Christmas tree, starting in the Middle Ages with something called the Paradise play.
In the medieval period, when the majority of the population was illiterate, plays were a popular means of conveying the stories of the Bible to the public. The most popular of these was that of Adam and Eve, whose downfall led to the original sin that would be wiped away with the birth of Christ on the 25th. As a result, these Paradise Plays depicting the story of the Garden of Eden were popular on the 24th of December, or Christmas Eve, which is also the traditional feast day for the two.¹⁶
Originally a public event that would eventually take place in the home starting in the 1600s, the Paradise Plays, as attested to in a manuscript for Le Jeu D’Adam, the Play of Adam, from France in the 12th century, were intended to be accessible to the masses. Our play from France, for example, includes lots of Latin, but the dialogue between the actors is in French, which would be a known departure from how the church generally conducted ceremonies. People would be included for the first time. And the tree depicting the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge, sometimes referred to as the Tree of Good and Evil, would be a required part of the performance. ¹⁴
“Then a serpent, cunningly put together, shall ascend along the trunk of the forbidden tree, unto which Eve shall approach her ear, as if hearkening unto its counsel. Thereafter, Eve shall take the apple, and shall offer it unto Adam. Then shall Adam eat a part of the apple; and having eaten it, he shall straightway take knowledge of his sin; and he shall bow himself down so that he cannot be seen of the people, and shall put off his goodly garments, and shall put on poor garments of fig-leaves sewn together; and manifesting exceeding great sorrow, he shall be gin his lamentation.”¹⁴
Dr. David Bertaina, Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Springfield, in his article ‘Trees and Decorations’ for the Oxford Handbook of Christmas, discusses how these Paradise trees were not only decorated with apples but also with wafers to represent the body of Christ. After the play, Adam would parade through the town or village carrying the tree as a symbol of Christ, possibly connected to the medieval idea that the crucifix of Jesus was made from a branch of the Tree of Knowledge.¹⁶
Less than a hundred years later, in 1210, Pope Innocent III would issue a papal edict forbidding clergy from acting on a public stage. This resulted in the plays being taken over by the community, often sponsored by guilds, performed by troupes.¹⁵
These guilds and their members could hold immense power in their communities, but they needed to curry favor with them to ensure their work. As a result, it was advantageous to sponsor such events.¹⁵
These guilds provide us with our first true prototypes of the Christmas tree, spread throughout Europe.
In 1419, the Freiburg baker’s guild, known as the Freiburg Fraternity of Baker’s Apprentices, documents a tree set up in the Hospital of the Holy Spirit, decorated with apples, wafers, gingerbread, and tinsel.¹⁶
In 1441, in Tallinn, Estonia, a tree was set up in front of a town hall for a dance. However, as the Middle Low German word used (bom) is ambiguous, it is possible that this was not a tree but rather a pole or mast.¹⁶
In 1510, Riga, Latvia, a merchant’s guild installed a tree in their hall.¹⁶
However, the problem with these two citations is that while they are widely referenced, including in the Oxford Handbook on Christmas and by Dr. Henry of ReligionforBreakfast, they are denounced by some historians as even precursors to the Christmas tree. Gustavs Strenga, a senior researcher at the National Library of Latvia in Riga, views them as part of a different tradition that took place in the Baltics during various holidays.²⁵
There is evidence from Balthasar Rüssow’s 1584, Chronica der Provintz Lyfflandt, which again references the trees specifically for the Lenten period, not Christmas.²⁴
Translation,
“The citizens during the winter days at Christmas and Shrovetide [season leading up to Lent] in their guildhalls, and the journeymen in their companies, practiced no small amount of revelry. And when the journeymen’s drinking-bout had come to an end, they set up a great tall fir tree, adorned with many roses, during Lent in the marketplace, and late in the evening they went there with a crowd of women and maidens, where they first sang and entwined themselves, and afterward lit the tree, which blazed mightily in the darkness.
Then the journeymen took one another by the hand and, in pairs, hopped and danced around the tree and around the fire, and the fireworks-masters had to shoot rockets there for display. And although such things were reproved by the preachers, yet this reproof was not heeded at all. Moreover, with the ring-riding, with women and maidens, there was neither measure nor end, both day and night, and often to the vexation and despite of the preachers who reproved such things.”²⁴
However, in 1885, Friedrich Amelung published his “Geschichte der Revaler Schwarzenhäupter: von ihrem Ursprung an bis auf die Gegenwart: nach den urkundenmäßigen Quellen des Revaler Schwarzenhäupter-Archivs 1, Die erste Blütezeit von 1399–1557“ or ‘Reval Blackheads: From Their Origins to the Present, According to the Documentary Sources of the Reval Blackheads Archive, Volume 1: The First Flourishing Period, 1399–1557’ writes on their traditions. However, he anachronistically refers to them using his own terminology of Christmas Tree:
“As the chronicler Balthasar Russow reports to us, in his youth and still shortly before the great Russian War (1558), the ‘carrying out of the tree’ (Baumaustragen) and the round dance (Reigentanz) around the burning Christmas tree on the marketplace had already become greatly excessive. In the year 1514, however, this does not seem to have been the case, and to our pious chronicler, no doubt, many an innocent worldly pleasure must have been a thorn in the eye. That aside, the Schasserschragen from the year 1514 is to inform us about the Christmas trees and the “Calf-Moses Dances,” as the chronicler calls them....The Schassers choose two torch dancers, as well as two companions for each of the two Christmas trees. If a companion has become a guild brother during this revelry, he has the privilege of carrying the tree. Afterwards (around 8 o’clock in the evening?), a dance begins from the Blackheads’ House to the marketplace. The lead dancers for this first, solemn dance are one old and one new Schaffer. This is the first dignified dance, followed by a second, wilder dance, in which the other old and new Schaffer lead, while the two sections (or claffen) of musicians precede the procession — performing with the große Spiel (full guild music) and with the lute. Upon reaching the marketplace, the two trees are set alight, and a round dance is performed around them. The entire procession then returns to Langstraße, where, in front of the Blackheads’ House, two “Rehse-processions” are danced along, and afterwards another dance is performed inside the house itself. At designated spots, everyone sits down, the new Schaffer — who are toasted — at the side of the elders.”²⁶
The Alsace region is where the Christmas tree as we know it is truly born, though it also has a few precursors. In 1531, there is evidence of evergreens being sold in marketplaces to be taken home. The Strasbourg Cathedral also displayed a tree in 1539.
The laws of the region also indicate how popular it was to decorate with evergreens and whole trees. In Freiburg, in 1554, citizens were prohibited from cutting down trees. Seven years later, in the Alsatian town of Ammeschwihr, it was permitted to cut trees smaller than “eight shoe lengths” (roughly four feet).²⁷
Bertaina then traces the proto-tree to a guild installation of a tree in their hall in 1570 Bremen, filled with apples, nuts, pretzels, and paper flowers.¹⁶ His source for this is German researcher Bernd Brunner, whose book, Inventing the Christmas Tree, only provides a selected bibliography. However, it appears that a shared citation for this Bremen guild is Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann’s Das Weihnachtsfest: eine Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte der Weihnachtszeit, published in 1978. However, as the only copy I was able to find online cost well over $100 and wouldn’t arrive until March, I cannot verify this citation.
Our first true Christmas tree comes from 1605 in the town of Freiburg in Alsace, “a source notes that locals put fir trees in their homes, and they decorated them with paper roses, apples, flat wafers, gilded candies, and sugar figurines.”¹⁶
Alsace continues to be the earliest attestation as the first use of the term Christmas Tree (albeit in German!) in 1611. However, the trees continued to be referred to by a variety of names: “Weihnachtsbaum (Christmas tree), including Tannenbaum (fir tree), Christbaum (Christ tree), Lichterbaum (light tree), and Lebensbaum (Tree of Life).”¹⁶
And in 1741, we have our first mention of the Christmas tree in its full form outside of the Germanic region in Sweden, with Countess Cristina Wrede-Sparr recording, “a tall fir surrounded by gifts and decorated with candles, apples, and saffron buns.”²⁸
In 1765, Goethe mentions a tree with candles in Leipzig.¹⁶
“The Christmas tree spread out in German society from the top down, so to speak. It moved from elite households to broader social strata, from urban to rural areas, from the Protestant north to the Catholic south, and from Prussia to other German states.”²⁰
Why Misinformation
The widespread misinformation surrounding Christmas trees stems from the even wider misinformation about Christmas in general, which links it to Paganism. While this was the popular general consensus in the early 1900s, it is academically as dead as flat Earth today. But academia cannot close Pandora’s Box on the public who has latched onto these theories.
As I have been researching and posting about this topic, and others before it, one thing that has become clear is that I am not just fighting misinformation: I am fighting feelings.
It feels right that Christianity would do something like steal a tradition and relabel it as theirs. After all, they engaged in some of the most horrific colonialism the world has ever seen. Why would a tree be the line they draw?
It feels like it should be right. And when you combine the realities of religious trauma with this feeling, it is extremely difficult to extract people from these ideas.
For those who have suffered Christian trauma, reclaiming these traditions by relabeling them as pagan can feel healing. But like I said earlier, misinformation is always harmful, and truth should be our guide.
As I’ve shared my journey with this topic, I have come across many fables surrounding the origins of the Christmas tree and thought I would tackle them, even if they are not expressly “Christmas trees are pagan”:
The Christmas Tree is actually a symbol of a penis for a pagan winter fertility holiday.
While a whimsical suggestion, there is no support for this claim.
Martin Luther invented the Christmas tree / Candles on the Tree
While not about paganism, there is also a claim that Luther either invented the Christmas tree in whole or that he invented the lights on the tree. There is no proof of either. The myth of Luther’s placing the first candle on the bough of a Christmas tree, however, helped popularize it in Protestant homes. Perhaps that is why it has remained so popular.²⁰
Siberian Shamans
There are also claims about Siberian shamans and Christmas and wearing red. Many of these were popularized by the book Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide, by husband-and-wife ethnobotanists Christian Rätsch and Claudia Müller-Ebeling. I read the book in my research and can safely say that while it is very interesting, just like many that come before it, it lacks citations, and the citations they do have are rooted in either 19th or 20th-century misinformation. On the topic of shamans, Santa, red and white, and psychedelic mushrooms, I recommend Dr. Peter Gainsford’s breakdown over at the Kiwi Hellenist.
But what about Boniface?
St. Boniface is the missionary saint credited with widespread conversions in Germanic regions. While there is a time-appropriate narrative of him destroying an oak tree sacred to the Germanic pagans, it is not linked with Christmas until 1891.
The first version, as attested to in the Life of St Boniface by Willibald, and a complete translation of this text from the original Latin was made in 1916 by George W. Robinson.²⁹.
With the advice and counsel of these last, the saint attempted, in the place called Gaesmere, while the servants of God stood by/ his side, to fell a certain oak of extraordinary size, which is called, by an old name of the pagans, the Oak ( of Jupiter.4 And when in the strength of his steadfast heart he had cut the lower notch, there was present a great multitude of pagans, who in their souls were most earnestly cursing the enemy of their gods. But hen the fore side of the tree was notched only a little, suddenly the oak’s vast bulk, driven by a divine blast from above, crashed to the ground, shivering its crown of branches as it fell; and, as if by the gracious dispensation of the Most High, it was also burst into four parts, and four trunks of huge size, equal in length, were seen, unwrought by the brethren who stood by. At this sight the pagans who before had cursed now, on the contrary, believed, and blessed the Lord, and put away their former reviling. Then moreover the most holy bishop, after taking counsel with the brethren, built from the timber of the tree a wooden oratory, and dedicated it in honor of Saint Peter the apostle.
When by the favor of God’s will all that we have told was fulfilled and accomplished, the saint went on to Thuringia.
As you can see, there is no mention of Christmas or any sort of evergreen tree, merely a fantastical story about the powers of the saint.
However, in 1891, Henry van Dyke wrote the short story “The Oak of Geismar”, published in Scribner’s Magazine, vol. 10, July-December (1891). The tale greatly expands upon the above paragraph, stretching it for hundreds more words.
“’And here,” said he, as his eyes fell on a young fir-tree, standing straight and green, with its top pointing towards the stars, amid the divided ruins of the fallen oak, “here is the living tree, with no stain of blood upon it, that shall be the sign of your new worship. See how it points to the sky. Let us call it the tree of the Christ-child. Take it up and carry it to the chieftain’s hall. You shall go no more into the shadows of the forest to keep your feasts with secret rites of shame. You shall keep them at home, with laughter and song and rites of love. The thunder-oak has fallen, and I think the day is coming when there shall not be a home in all Germany where the children are not gathered around the green fir-tree to rejoice in the birth-night of Christ.”
So they took the little fir from its place, and carried it in joyous procession to the edge of the glade, and laid it on the sledge. The horses tossed their heads and drew their load bravely, as if the new burden had made it lighter.”³⁰
It is from this 19th-century tale that we credit Boniface with the creation of the Christmas tree.
Citations
Thank you for reading. The research for this article extended far past the 32 citations listed below. I purchased and read 12 books and hundreds of articles, many in their original German. I am not ignorant to the sensitivity of this matter but I truly feel that misinformation is a danger to us all. As a German-Jewish scholar, I am uniquely positioned in my perspective on the many traditions that are relabeled as ‘truly German’ and feel deeply for all of us navigating finding our place in a society so firmly under the thumb of Christian hegemony.
Citations
Dégh, Linda. “Grimm’s ‘Household Tales’ and Its Place in the Household: The Social Relevance of a Controversial Classic.” Western Folklore, vol. 38, no. 2, 1979, pp. 83–103. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1498562. Accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
Koehne, Samuel. “Were the National Socialists a ‘Völkisch’ Party? Paganism, Christianity, and the Nazi Christmas.” Central European History, vol. 47, no. 4, 2014, pp. 760–90. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43965085. Accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
Range, Peter Ross. 1924: The Year That Made Hitler. Little, Brown and Company, 2016.
Gajek, E. (1990). Christmas Under the Third Reich. Anthropology Today, 6(4), 3–9. https://doi.org/10.2307/3032733
Churco, Jennie M. “CHRISTMAS AND THE ROMAN SATURNALIA.” The Classical Outlook, vol. 16, no. 3, 1938, pp. 25–26. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44006272. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.
Tille, Alexander. “Yule and Christmas, Their Place in the Germanic Year : Tille, Alexander, 1866-1912 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, London : D. Nutt, 1 Jan. 1899, archive.org/details/yulechristmasthe00tillrich/page/92/mode/1up?q=tree.
Dr. Peter Gainsford, Christmas and its Supposed Links, https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2015/12/christmas-and-its-supposed-pagan-links.html
https://www.germanicmythology.com/works/De%20Correctione%20Rusticorum.html
Hijmans, Steven E. Sol: Image and Meaning of the Sun in Roman Art and Religion. Brill, 2024.
Beda, and Faith Wallis. Bede: The Reckoning of Time. Liverpool University Press, 2012.
DELPHI CLASSICS. Mystery and Morality Plays - the Delphi Edition (Illustrated). DELPHI PUBLISHING LTD, 2022.
Bertaina, David, ‘Trees and Decorations’, in Timothy Larsen (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Christmas (2020; online edn, Oxford Academic, 8 Oct. 2020), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198831464.013.23
Nothaft, C. P. E. “The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trends in Historical Research.” Church History 81.4 (2012): 903–911. Web.
Bowler, Gerry. The World Encyclopedia of Christmas. M & S, 2004.
Marbach, Johannes. Die heilige Weihnachtszeit nach Bedeutung, Geschichte, Sitten und Symbolen. J.D. Sauerländer, 1865.
Perry, Joe. Christmas in Germany: A Cultural History. University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Publications. United Kingdom, n.p, 1892.
Perry, Joe. “Nazifying Christmas: Political Culture and Popular Celebration in the Third Reich.” Central European History, vol. 38, no. 4, 2005, pp. 572–605. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20141153. Accessed 10 Dec. 2025.
Russow, Balthasar. Chronica der Provintz Lyfflandt. 1584. Accessed via Digitale Sammlungen, p. 84. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/view/bsb10208618?page=84
Amelung, Friedrich. Geschichte der Revaler Schwarzenhäupter: von ihrem Ursprung an bis auf die Gegenwart. 1. Lief. Die erste Blütezeit von 1399–1557. Reval: F. Wassermann, 1885. https://dspace.ut.ee/server/api/core/bitstreams/690cc810-95cd-4641-b440-3609c4b3ab80/content
Snyder, Phillip V., and Roy Coggin. The Christmas Tree Book: The History of the Christmas Tree and Antique Christmas Tree Ornaments. Penguin Books, 1985.
Perry, Joe, ‘Germany and Scandinavia’, in Timothy Larsen (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Christmas (2020; online edn, Oxford Academic, 8 Oct. 2020), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198831464.013.36, accessed 10 Dec. 2025.
Willibald. “The Life of Saint Boniface : Willibald, of Mainz, 8th Cent : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1 Jan. 1970, archive.org/details/lifeofsaintboni00robiuoft/page/62/mode/2up?q=tree.
Van Dyke, Henry. “The First Christmas Tree: A Story of the Forest.” The Project Gutenberg eBook of The First Christmas Tree, by Henry Van Dyke, 7 Dec. 2025, www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16134/pg16134-images.html.
Miles, Clement A. Christmas Customs and Traditions, Their History and Significance. Dover Publications, 1912.
This article is SO well done! As a historian, educator and content creator, thank you for this amazing labor of love and your willingness to share the wealth of knowledge that is often hidden away from the public for reasons of "academia" and such.
SO GOOD! Thank you for such a comprehensive and thorough breakdown.