Trent Preszler

winter's darkness.

And on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the evergreen boughs represented hope for the future and sort of a light and life in the darkness.

And then the first known recorded instance of, I guess, a modern era

Christmas tree, there were a couple of reports in the 1500s in Germany, in small villages in Germany where villagers erected trees and decorated them with bread and ginger and apples and candies and

then it spread throughout Germany first.

Then from there, it really spread throughout Europe and eventually made its way to the United States in the early 1800s, the tradition of bringing in a tree for the winter.

Probably the most popularized form of a decorated tree happened in England with some members of the royal family who put up a tree and decorated it.

Then there was a very popular magazine in America in the 1800s called Godey's Lady Book.

And they published this photo of English royalty posing with a decorated tree.

And it kind of spread.

I guess it was one of the original viral images.

And it spread this image of families gathered around a tree.

At the time, it was...

twinkling with whale oil candles and silver thread and fruits and it was kind of a at that time the decorations were more a symbol of abundance uh and plenty so there were a lot of food items that were used and so the evergreen tree played some role in the american revolution can you tell that story quickly

Oh, sure.

It's so fascinating.

Everyone thinks, well, the revolution started with the Boston Tea Party.

In fact, it started with the Pine Tree Riot.

By the 1500s, Britain had cut down almost every single tree on their land, and they ran out of tall trees to make ship's masts for the Royal Navy.

And so they were kind of, you know, desperate for lumber.