The 12 Posts of Christmas, Day 5: Symbols and Traditions

Inside: Symbols and traditions mark the seasons of our lives, and perhaps none are more loved and cherished than those that celebrate Christmas.

Christmas symbols and traditions. — Nothing says welcome home like a wreath.

Christmas Wreaths

Wreaths are typically made from flowers, leaves, twigs, vines, fruit, or other materials formed into a ring. (And occasionally tractor tires.) They adorn front doors as a sign of welcome, hang attractively above mantles, and are commonly strung from lampposts in many cites this time of year. But where did the tradition begin?

While wreaths can be traced back to ancient times, from the Greco-Roman world where they were worn as status symbols and crowns, for our purposes, the idea of a wreath for Christmas celebrations started with sixteen century Lutherans in Germany as a way to mark the season of Advent. In 1839 a Lutheran priest by the name of Johann Hinrich Wichern formed a wreath from a cart wheel to teach children about the meaning of Christmas and helped them count the weeks until Christmas Day–the origin of our modern Advent wreath. Eventually the tradition spread to other Christian denominations, with some variations in design, though all have four candles. Evergreen branches are a popular material for Advent and Christmas wreaths because they represent everlasting life and strength, while the circular shape symbolizes God who has no beginning and no end.

Christmas Lights

Symbols and traditions. — Can you ever have too many lights?

Before there were Christmas lights, there were candles. Dating back to seventeenth century Germany, small candles were attached to Christmas trees with pins or melted wax, and lit candles were placed in the windows, visible from outside, to let other Christians know they were welcome to come in and worship with those who lived there.

In 1880 Thomas Edison displayed the first official outdoor Christmas lights outside his laboratory near a railroad where many people could see it at night, introducing the idea to the world, and a couple of years later Edward Johnson, who worked with Edison, invented the first string of Christmas lights with 80 small electric light bulbs. By 1890 departments stores began using the mass-produced strings of lights in their Christmas displays, and at the turn of the twentieth century, retail stores and governments buildings followed suit. In 1895 President Grover Cleveland sponsored the first electrically lit White House Christmas tree, which put the national spotlight (no pun intended) on the trend. When electric lights became more affordable, people began to hang them on their own houses.

By the 40s and 50s, more people began decorating the outside of their homes to compete with the elaborate stores in town. A popular theme was to fashion a star to represent the one that led the Three Wise Men to the Christ Child. Tame by today’s standards. Home owners nowadays battle each other in national competitions to see whose property is decorated with the biggest and best light show in the country. Or, at the very least, vie for bragging rights for the coolest light display on the block.

Thomas Edison would be proud.

Nutcrackers

While tools for cracking nuts have been around since the fourteenth century, early versions of the wooden soldiers we think of today didn’t make an appearance until the late seventeenth. Often made in German workshops alongside toys and puzzles, it’s unknown at what point these symbols of good luck became associated with Christmas, though they were certainly given as gifts.

Regardless, most German homes had only one, so German woodcarvers found themselves taking to the road, selling their wares in Russia, Poland, and Norway. With increased demand, nutcrackers began to be commercially produced in factories by the 1870s. Peter Tchaikovsky, upon adapting the Christmas story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King in 1892, brought more attention to the wooden soldiers–though not until the mid-twentieth century when his ballet became a hit with American audiences. Prior to that, American G.I.s stationed in West Germany after the First World War began buying the nutcrackers and sending them home for Christmas gifts.

And that trend continued through the close of the Second World War and even the Cold War when the region famous for these soldier-dolls, Erzgebirge, ended up behind the East German border. While the East German woodcarvers eventually floundered under restrictions, the West German woodcarvers flourished and produced new more creative designs. American sales continued to grow, and even today nutcrackers remain widely popular here, whether made in Germany or mass produced to look like the originals.

I imagine, though, that most never bite down on an actual nut, instead providing festive company through the Christmas season.