December 24th: Norway Spruce (Picea abies) Pt. I

Today's entry in 'Gardening with God' has a particularly German flavour and so is especially dedicated to our beloved Pope Benedict.

History and Lore of the Christmas Tree (extract)

"The word spruce comes from German 'sprossen' (young shoots). 'Sprossen bier' came into English as pruce beer, later Prussian beer. The tree is not considered native to Britain, and although it did grow there before the last ice age, it was not reintroduced until about 1500. It is most important in building and carpentry and in the manufacture of packing cases, pit props, telegraph poles, chipboard, and paper pulp. The timber is sometimes known as 'violin wood' because of its use in making soundboards to transmit vibrations from strings to the wood of the sides and back of the instrument.......

"The subject of tree-dresssing takes us into the pagan past. Certainly, there is evidence that the practice of bringing decorated greenery into our dwellings at the winter solstice dates back to the Iron Age. There is however, a biblical precedent for the use of evergreens as decoration, at least in church. 'The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress, the plane, and the pine, to beautify the place of my sanctuary' (Is. 60:13). This text satisfyingly quells any worries about paganism and supports one of the major premises of these pages: if you bring a branch into your house for the sake of mere superstitious ritual it is worse than useless; if you do it for God it is a form of prayer.

"The prototype of the first Christmas tree in England is supposed to have been an evergreen branch decorated with golden oranges and almonds, for the royal children's party in 1821. Another twenty years were to pass before Prince Albert and Queen Victoria brought his native custom to life in Windsor Castle, when they hung lights and decorations on a tree there. The habit must have been taken up widely and rapidly, for in 1850 we find Dickens referring to the Christmas tree as 'the new German toy'. He had published 'A Christmas Carol' in 1843, and his reaction seems incongruously 'Bah! Humbug!' for a man widely accepted as having created our modern image of Christmas tradition and conviviality. Perhaps he resented Albert's treading on his territory. And he was very wrong about the newness of the Christmas tree. The Prince Consort could have no doubt told him the legend of St. Boniface*, the Devonian monk who left Crediton around 719 to evangelise Germany. The story goes that one day whilst on his travels he came upon an oak tree that had been the scene of pagan human sacrifice. Boniface subsequently cut down the tree, and as it fell, a little fir tree began to grow in its place. The saint subsequently used the miracle as a metaphor in his preaching. Some time later a legend arose, also in Germany, that as the cattle bowed their heads on Christmas Eve, the forest trees put out green shoots at the same time. After that, evergreens, particularly, fir trees, were taken into houses and called Christmas trees, but decoration of them apparently only began to take hold after about 1530............

"When I was a child, a 'pretend' tree was 'not quite the ticket' - an expression I suspect derives from 'not quite etiquette ....and I still feel that there is something pathetically soulless about an artificial tree....Then there were the metal clip-on candle-holders that my father had brought back after the war. (They were German** and had somehow found their way into the wardroom on his minesweeper. They and the candles they held were eventually replaced by electric 'fairy' lights but however pretty these were, they could not recreate the aura of those early Christmases when the tree, its branches warmed by natural flame, whould release into the room the most glorious scent of pine. This is the smell that evokes Christmas for me above all others, even though it does so now only through the power of memory."

copyright Jane Mossendew 2002

*More on St. Boniface and his oak from 'The Crown of the Year' when we come to his feast day next June.

**My first conscious memory of these candle holders would have been Christmas 1946Remembering them again today it moved me to think that on the same Christmas Eve, a 20 year old Joseph Ratzinger and his brother Georg had not long been restored to their parents and sister. And then it gave me a sudden 'turn' to realise that Pope Benedict may have had real candles in similar holders on the family Christmas trees of his childhood and youth. I like to think that he did, and that as he looks at his own Christmas tree in Rome each year, he shares with me the beautiful memory of the scent I descibed above.