Ace Collins

It was probably the French who had a great deal with starting to put more elaborate decorations on it in America Christmas trees were not really embraced until the 1840s and 1850s and the first Christmas tree lot Did not show up in New York City, which was the first lot that we know of anywhere until the 1870s and it was actually a called a

The man who ran it was named Carr, so it was also the first car lot, I guess you could say.

It was just selling Christmas trees.

Probably the Vikings did some.

They were also hanging carvings of the nativity scene on trees in the 1500s, and the nativity scenes in people's homes go back to 3 and 4 and 500 AD.

So the

Those were probably the very first ornaments.

But it was glass ornaments made in Germany that were the first ornaments that were sold to actually hang on trees.

Before that, they were homemade pieces of paper or popcorn or strung berries.

And so it was about 250 years ago when the glass ornaments started to really take root in Germany.

And it was after the Civil War when they started selling glass ornaments in the United States.

They were imported at first in companies like Shiny Bright.

brought them out in the 1900s in a more cheaply packaged mix where the people in middle class could buy them.

Before that, it was strictly for the wealthy.

It's a plant that the Aztecs and others used for years and thought of as magical.

And there was a story, a fable, if you will, in Mexico about a Christmas Eve service in which a

A young girl, and this is going to be reminiscent of a song that was written later, Little Drummer Boy, who had a similar experience when that song was written in the late 30s and early 40s.

But this was a little girl who had nothing to give for the babe in the manger.

And so she brought in this plant.

And when she set the plant at the base of the crib, the plant magically turned red, the leaves did.