Christmas Tree Facts & Trivia

The use of evergreen trees to celebrate the winter season occurred before the birth of Christ.
The first decorated Christmas was in Riga, Latvia in 1510.
The first printed reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.
Nineteenth century Americans cut their trees in nearby forests.
Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the United states since about 1850. Until fairly recently, all Christmas trees came from the forest.
The first Christmas tree retail lot in the United States was started in 1851 in New York by Mark Carr.
In 1900, large stores started to erect big illuminated Christmas trees.

In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return.

The ancient Egyptians worshiped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from the illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death.

Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs.

In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder.
http://www.thehistoryofchristmas.com/trivia/trees.htm

The UK has the largest concentration of ancient trees in Northern Europe.
The oldest tree in the UK and perhaps in Europe is believed to be the Fortingall Yew near Aberfeldy in Scotland, and is thought to be 5,000 years old.
An oak spends 300 years growing, 300 years resting and 300 years declining gracefully.
Oliver Rackham wrote: ‘Ten thousand oaks of one hundred years are no substitute for one five hundred year old oak tree’.
The fattest oak tree in Britain would take about nine adults to hug it, finger tip to finger tip.
There are 500,000 listed buildings in the UK and perhaps as many unlisted ancient trees to be found.