Christmas Tree

An evergreen fir or pine tree brought indoors and decorated with lights, ornaments, and other objects as part of the celebration of Christmas, originating in the Alsatian tradition of cutting communal forest firs at the winter solstice feast and later decorating them with paper flowers, apples, wafers, and gold foil. The custom spread through German Lutheran territories during the 17th century. It entered Britain not via Prince Albert in 1840 but earlier: Queen Charlotte (German wife of George III) set up a tree at Windsor in 1800. It was the 1848 Illustrated London News engraving of Victoria and Albert around their Windsor tree that triggered mass middle-class adoption across Britain, and the custom subsequently diffused globally through the 19th century.