Why do we decorate for Christmas

Posted by Brian Babor on November 22nd, 2022

The holiday season is a festive, delectable, and hectic time of year. Christmas is all about celebration, spending time with friends and family, and eating way too much shortbread.

This includes holiday feasts, stockings hanging with care, and presents under the tree. The lights and decorations that adorn our homes and places of business throughout the holidays contribute to part of what makes the holidays so joyous. But why do we deck out our homes for the holidays? Where exactly did these customs?

How come Red and Green?

Numerous colors and decorating styles are available for use in modern Christmas decor while decking up a home for the holidays. However, red and green dominate traditional holiday decorations. But why is that? It turns out that the religious significance of these colors runs deep.

Both the belief in Jesus' eternal life and the continuity of life during the winter are connected to the color green. Red, meanwhile, has long been used to represent Jesus' blood. Red and green are now utilized in both religious and non-religious contexts too.

The Holiday Tree

One of the most significant symbols of the holiday season for many of us is the Traditional Lit Christmas tree. The origins of something are the subject of numerous theories. One of them is the fact that the tree itself is a "Christianization" of paganism's winter solstice customs. Evergreen boughs are used to decorate as part of these customs.

The history of the contemporary Christmas tree may be clearly dated to Germany in the 18th century, and possibly much earlier. Cutting down a tree and bringing it inside originated in Germany, and thanks to Queen Charlotte (George III's wife), the custom swiftly spread.

The first electric Christmas illumination was created, according to Thomas Edison. He used strings of electric incandescent bulbs to decorate his Menlo Park laboratory, which served as the base of operations for his company, the Illumination Company. He did this to encourage the use of electric illumination as well as to spread some holiday cheer.

When he installed these holiday lights in the early 1880s, electric lighting was still viewed with a great degree of skepticism. Edison used a generator more than eight miles away to power these lights in an effort to demonstrate their effectiveness and safety.

Christmas Lights

These colorful Christmas lights and the introduction of Christmas Tree lighting is undoubtedly connected. However, contrary to what our buddy Thomas Edison would have us believe, utilizing lights to celebrate the holiday season has a much longer history. In reality, the Norsemen celebrated this midwinter custom during the Yule, which is when lights were first used as decorations.

As part of their festivities, they drank "Yule," the beer that the Norse deity Odin offered as a sacrifice, and watched the Yule log burn. It was thought that lighting the Yule log would both call the sun back and ward off evil spirits. It has been suggested that Christian customs expand on the Yule log concept by using light during the holidays to symbolize Jesus illuminating the night.

Holly, Mistletoe, Evergreen, and Poinsettia

Mistletoe, evergreens, and holly are three plants that are more commonly associated with the holiday season than any other. These sentimental plants have a long and significant connection to the holiday season. Similar to the color green itself, evergreen boughs are used to represent the persistence of life over a protracted, bleak winter.

The Victorians, on the other hand, accepted mistletoe as a means of snatching a kiss during the holiday season. Anywhere in the house may be used to hang mistletoe, and anyone could kiss under it. The catch was that each berry could only receive one kiss, and that kiss required that the berry be removed.