A Moment in Time"When There Were No Christmas Trees"December 1997 A monthly series from the Kansas Historical Society If you're hoping to simplify your life this holiday, consider the homespun ways our ancestors celebrated the season. Today's flashy Christmas tree, for example, is just one of many traditions with modest beginnings. Centuries ago, people brought green branches or trees into their dwellings around the time of the winter solstice, December 21. The boughs were used in rituals to protect homes and ensure the return of spring. Decorating evergreens continued to be a popular practice even after Christianity replaced older religions, and the practice remained especially important to German culture. References to Christmas trees are rare in America before the 1850s, although the first-known trees were decorated in one of Pennsylvania's German settlements in 1747. The great influx of German immigrants to the United States in the mid-1800s brought the custom of the decorated tree to America. Magazines and newspapers popularized it further. The collections of the Kansas Historical Society include references to early Kansas Christmas trees. Community trees in churches and town halls often were mentioned during the 1870s. The Hays City Sentinel stated in 1877, "Stockton's Sabbath-school is to have a Christmas-tree." Just two years later, trees were so customary that the Sentinel noted, "We have heard of no arrangements for a Christmas tree. Are the little ones to be slighted this year[?]" Table-top trees were a German custom, but the notion of a room-sized tree is completely American. An early resident of the town of Potwin in Butler County remembered how "a nice Hackberry tree was selected and transported to the hall, where it was found the tree was four times as large as the door. Limbs were sawed slantingly until the tree could be taken into the hall, where the limbs were nailed back in their proper place." Presbyterians and Methodists shared the first church in Smith Center, and held their first meeting in the building on Christmas Eve in 1877. Cordelia Niles McDowell recalled the event: "A community Christmas tree was brought from the banks of the Solomon River and when placed in the church extended from the floor to the roof. You will note I stated, 'to the roof,' not the ceiling, as the church had no ceiling at that time." Until well into the twentieth century, most American Christmas trees were trimmed with handmade ornaments. Candy, fruit, and nuts also were popular. Another of nature's products decorated the boughs of one family's tree near Lawrence in the 1870s. In addition to the "yards and yards" of strung popcorn and cranberries, sprays of bittersweet were "brought up from the basement where they had been dried, berry ends down so the stems would be long and straight." Another uniquely American tradition was trimming the tree with Christmas presents. Kiowa residents were so delighted with their new hall in 1881 that they decided to have a community celebration. "Some one [sic] brought in a huge cedar tree, set it on the floor and nailed the top to the ceiling. A nice big star was made out of heavy paper and covered with tin foil off tobacco and placed high on the tree with one lone candle," remembered Julia Bunton many years later. As there was nothing more with which to trim the tree, Kiowans hung presents on its branches--brighly colored silk handkerchiefs, shiny knives, and candy. "They certainly made a fine showing," Bunton recalled. In the days before electric lights, candles often lit Christmas trees. Harriet Adams recalled a holiday in the 1870s when she was just seven years old and her family was living near the Little Blue River in north-central Kansas. "On the bluff nearest our home was a scattering growth of cedars," she recounted. "Father took us with him as he carried an axe and selected the tree. . . . Then Father set it up securely in the center of the living room, and found a piece of tin and made the candle holders." After breakfast on Christmas morning, the family marched around the tree, which was decorated with ribbons and gifts as well as the usual strings of popcorn and cranberries. Adams remembered, "There was the most delightful odor of scorching cedar, and Father would keep walking around and around the tree smothering every smoking stem and keep the candles burning safely." The first glass balls and strings of glass beads came to America with German immigrants, but were not imported commercially until the 1870s. They were rare in American homes until the 1880s, and most trees had only a few glass ornaments until the twentieth century. During this holiday season you can find Christmas trees decorated in the twentieth-century style at the Kansas History Center in Topeka as well as many of our state historic sites. The Kansas Historical Society's collections include many reminiscences and accounts of Christmas celebrations in Kansas, as well as both handmade and commercially manufactured tree ornaments. The Kansas Museum of History is open 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Monday - Saturday, and 12:30 - 4:30 p.m. Sunday. The Center for Historical Research is open 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Monday - Saturday. Both are located at the Kansas History Center, 6425 SW Sixth Avenue, Topeka, KS 66615-1099; 785-272-8681; TTY 785-272-8683; www.kshs.org The Kansas Historical Society does not discriminate on the basis of disability in admission to, access to, or operation of its programs. The Society requests prior notification to accommodate individuals with special needs or disabilities. |
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