You can decorate your house with all sorts of Christmas ornaments, decorations and lights.

Here you can learn the history of these traditions and why we love to decorate our homes at Christmas time.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

History of Decorating for Christmas

Around the end of November every year, the magic happens. Out come the boxes of tinsel, the family's baubles and the freshly cut tree.

In some families, it's a time of searching for the best berried holly, and evergreen branches to decorate their homes in true Chrstmas style. But why do we do it?

In older pre-Christian times, ancient man believed that by decorating the bushes in the winter season, they could attract the favor of good spirits seeking shelter from the harsh winter's weather.

We know that they decorated with bits of coloured cloth, stones etc. The people of old Mesopotamia (Babylonia in the middle East, Modern Irac) prefered fringes. In their culture, fringed garments were a status symbol. The fringe would be taken off old garments and used to decorate their bushes.

Later, people began to take branches and evergreen trees into their homes to give warmth and shelter to the spirits of nature, releasing them in the early spring when the first buds began to appear on the trees. This was done to gain good favor from the spirits, so it brought good luck and good health. From tradition we get two customs:

The bringing of evergreens into the home at Christmastime
The superstition that all decorations must be taken down by the end of Christmas, or we shall have bad luck.

Originally, people kept up their decorations for much longer than we do now. Originally, the Christmas season ended on Candlemas, the Festival of Lights celebrated on the 2nd of February, which was more in keeping with the earliest signs of Spring.

So we can see how the ancient pre-Christian custom of bringing in branches for the spirits and putting them out again in Spring, fits into the later medieval Christmas traditions that was so similar. In the middle ages, people still believed that there were indeed tree spirits which inhabited the evergreens, and that these little spirits would cause havoc in the home if not released.

Ancient customs did not die out with the coming of Christianity, they simply adapted. Many beliefs continued for hundreds of years, encouraged by a largely illiterate people in a time before books and learning were available to everyone.

So how did Christmas become Christianized?

In the 6th century, missionaries were sent to Britain from Rome. St. Gregory was a wise man with understanding beyond his time. He realised that it was not possible to expect people to convert and change the ways of centuries of tradition overnight. So he told his missionaries to make allowances. If the people decorate their temples to Saturn, let them in future still decorate them - but for the festival of Christ's Birth.

It was St. Augustine who founded the first great church in Britain, followed this rule, and gently converted some 10,000 people in one Christmas to the new teachings of Christianity.

People did decorate, but as a celebration to honour the birth of the Son of God. And if they retained some superstitions from their earlier beliefs, it did not matter so much to the Church as long as they understood about the teachings of Christ.

For many centuries the natural evergreen boughs were the only decorations people had for Christmas. Branches of holly, or holm as it was called, were popular because of their red berries. Mistletoe was also used because it had berries which provided contrast to the greenery.

EARLY AMERICAN YULE DECORATIONS

In North America's mid-18th century, every geographic location had different decorations and traditions. The Germanic settlers predominated with their evergreen wreaths and candle decorations. While in areas such as Williamsburg, the gentry followed the Anglican church's traditions, sticking holly into the window frames.

Popularized on both sides of the Atlantic, fruit decorations became an attempt to reproduce the natural decorations of our forefathers. In both countries, fruit was far too expensive a commodity in the middle of winter to waste on door decorations, and only the richest and most wasteful of households would ever do such a thing.

With a wide variety of climates, America had fruit a plenty in wintertime. Later immigrants from Mediterranean countries such as Italy, brought their traditions of fruited garlands to America with them.

The glass ornament industry did not begin until the mid 19th century, so wax ornaments were used before that time. Fruits and other decorations made of wax were very popluar during that era.

THE GLASS CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT

Glass making was crafted in Bohemia (modern Czechoslovakia), and along the border areas with Germany at a place in Thuringia called Lauscha. In the 17th century, glass beads were made for chandeliers and for decorating dresses. Some of the early strings of chandelier beads also were used for decorating Christmas trees, and a type of wooden chandelier with Nativity figures carved along its arms, called a spinne. The candlelight of the spinne reflected on the strings of tiny beads resembled a spiders web glistening in the frost.

Early glass balls, or marbles, were made at Lauscha as children's games.

Glass blowers would have glass blowing games to see who could blow the largest ball before the glass burst. These balls were gathered up by the wives, who would silver them, by swirling a silver nitrate solution around the insides, and take them to the Christmas markets to sell. There they were sold as Christmas balls to avert evil from the home during the Christmas season, hung or stuck onto sticks in the hallway of the house. This custom was a later version of the Holy Bough customs, a vague memory of keeping bad things from the house during the Holy season.

Oddly, in later years people believed them to be witches balls possessed with magic. The balls hung in the windows of antique shops in England, but the shop assistants would not sell them believing they will be selling off their good luck if they did.

In 1863, the city of Lauscha installed natural gas, and the glass blowing got much easier. The glass could be blown much thinner without bursting, and it was possible to use wooden moulds to blow the glass into to create shapes and figures'.

Glass blowing Christmas ornaments became popularized by the 1870's, and Lauscha began exporting glass balls to Britain and North America.

Having glass decorations became a symbo of status, having as many glass ornaments on the Christmas tree as one could afford.

By the 1890's in Britain, even the less well-to-do families had trees laden with glass shapes.

While pioneer America still used homemade decorations such as tinsel and cotton batted shapes, pierced tin stars, lanterns, and handsewn or wood decorations of all kinds. But the fashionable East Coast society filled their trees with glittering glass.

Europe tended to be more traditional, alternating glass with traditional fruits (Germany), paper scissorcuts (Poland), and straw (many alpine areas in Switzerland, Austria). The Italians had a ceppo instead of a tree, which were pyramid shaped shelves with a nativity on one shelf, fruits and floral decorations on the others. Scandinavian countries had very different ideas, and used grain garlands, straw goats, little wooden gnomes called Tomte, Nisse or Gubbe. Red and white themes, and many candles.

POST-WAR CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY DECORATIONS

By the 1950's, most people in America and Britain were using artificial decorations. New machinery made such things cheap and easy to mass produce.

housewives generally preferred these artificial decorations to real evergreens, because they were less hassle and cleaner. Pretty paper and foil honeycomb garlands were seen in the very best homes and the humble dwelling alike. This trend lasted until the new revival for natural decorations took a swing back to the Victorian Christmas look in the late 1970's America, and late 1980's of Britain.

Every year the trends and traditions change, but one thing that's always constant is Christmas.

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