Why We Put Up Christmas Trees

Latvia says the first Christmas tree went up in Riga in 1510. Estonia says Tallinn beat it by 69 years. Historians say neither one was a Christmas tree.

The origin is genuinely unsettled, and most of the confident answers online are repeating a story nobody has proved. What is documented is how the tree reached a living room, and that part runs through a German-born queen, one magazine engraving, and about 350 million trees now growing on American farms.

People put up a Christmas tree because German households turned the evergreen into a home Christmas custom, and two British royal households then carried it into the English-speaking world. Queen Charlotte set up a candlelit yew at Windsor on Christmas Day 1800, and an 1848 engraving of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert around their tree turned it into a mass fashion. The older origin stays disputed: Riga claims 1510, Tallinn claims 1441, and historians doubt either guild festival had anything to do with Christmas. US farms cut more than 14.5 million trees in 2022 according to the USDA Census of Agriculture, and roughly 77 percent of American households now display a tree of some kind.

In this article

• The Christmas Tree by the Numbers ↓
• What the Record Shows ↓
• The Stories That Do Not Quite Hold ↓
• How the Tree Reached Your Living Room ↓
• FAQ ↓

The Christmas Tree by the Numbers

What the Record Shows

The Christmas tree has no agreed birthday, and the honest version of the story starts there. Two Baltic cities claim the first one, a scholar has rejected the most popular origin theory outright, and the single most repeated anecdote about the tree is a legend with no source behind it. Anyone giving a clean one-line answer is choosing a story rather than reporting a record.

The documented trail begins later and runs through German-speaking Europe. A tree was raised in Strasbourg Cathedral in 1539. Freiburg banned the felling of trees for Christmas in 1554, which is a backhanded piece of evidence: a city does not outlaw something nobody is doing. Balthasar Russow recorded a decorated fir standing in the Riga market square in 1584. By the 1600s the custom of a decorated evergreen in the home was established across the German states.

Everything after that is a story of transmission rather than invention. The tree moved from German homes to British royal ones, from British royal ones into a magazine, and from a magazine into ordinary houses on two continents. That path is well recorded, which makes the question of who was first less useful than the question of how it spread.

The Stories That Do Not Quite Hold

Riga and Tallinn Both Claim the First Tree

Riga and Tallinn have argued over the first Christmas tree for decades, and both claims rest on records from the same organization. The Brotherhood of Blackheads was a guild of unmarried merchants, ship owners and foreigners in Livonia, covering what is now Latvia and Estonia. Riga dates its tree to 1510. Tallinn dates its own to 1441, which would put it 69 years earlier.

Neither tree matches what happens in a living room in December. Both stood in the town square, both were danced around by the guild, and both were then set on fire. Historians have questioned whether the festivities were Christmas events at all, with a researcher at the National Library of Latvia telling the New York Times in 2016 that the guild's celebrations were likely unrelated to Christmas. The dispute is a good tourism story and a weak historical one.

The Paradise Play Is the Popular Theory

The paradise play theory is the origin story most books repeat, and it is plausible without being settled. Medieval German mystery plays performed during Advent dramatized Adam and Eve, and the central prop was a paradise tree: a fir hung with apples standing in for the Garden of Eden. Wafers were added for the communion host, then cherries and pastry ornaments, and the object picked up the name Christbaum. Households too poor for a real tree built wooden pyramids and dressed them with paper, apples and candles instead.

The link is tidy, which is part of why it gets doubted. Religious studies scholar Carole Cusack dismisses the paradise-tree explanation and argues the tree was meant to sit outside Christian symbolism rather than inside it. The same apples-on-a-fir imagery also runs through the older story of how red and green became the holiday's colors, covered in Christmas Colors Came From Church Paint.

Martin Luther and the Candles

Martin Luther gets credit for the first lit Christmas tree, and the story is a legend rather than a record. In the usual telling, Luther walked home through a winter forest around 1536, saw stars through the branches, and set candles on a fir indoors to recreate the effect. No contemporary document supports it.

The story survived because it is a good one and because it attaches a familiar name to an anonymous custom. Traditions rarely have a single inventor, and the ones with a famous name attached usually acquired the name afterward. Treat Luther's candles as folklore, not history.

How the Tree Reached Your Living Room

Queen Charlotte Brought It to England

Queen Charlotte put the first documented Christmas tree in England, and she is the name most versions of this story leave out. Charlotte came from the German duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, where decorating a large yew branch at Christmas was ordinary practice, and she brought the habit with her to the English court. On Christmas Day 1800 she went further than a branch. Her biographer John Watkins described an immense tub at Queen's Lodge, Windsor, holding a whole yew tree.

The details in his account are the ones still in use. Bunches of sweetmeats, almonds and raisins in papers hung from the branches alongside fruit and toys, and the whole thing was lit by small wax candles. The party was for the children of leading Windsor families. For the next forty years the tree stayed a court and aristocratic curiosity, turning up at Welbeck Abbey in 1807 and at a German-style celebration hosted by Princess Lieven in 1829, without reaching ordinary British homes.

One Engraving Did the Rest

The Christmas tree became a mass custom because of a single picture. On 23 December 1848 the Illustrated London News published an engraving of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, their children and Victoria's mother gathered around a decorated tree at Windsor Castle. The image did what forty years of royal practice had not, and the fashion moved from the upper classes into the rest of British society within a few years. It also misfired historically, since it left the public crediting Albert with introducing a custom Charlotte had brought over decades earlier.

America got it secondhand and redrawn. Godey's Lady's Book reprinted the scene in December 1850 with the royal markers taken out, so the family read as an ordinary American one rather than a British court. Accounts differ on exactly which details were erased, with National Geographic citing Victoria's crown and Albert's royal sash. The effect is not in dispute. It was the first widely circulated image of a decorated Christmas tree in America, Mark Carr opened the first commercial tree lot in New York City the following year, and the White House had its first documented tree under Benjamin Harrison in 1889.

What the Tree Looks Like Now

The Christmas tree is now a farmed crop, which is the least romantic and most surprising part of the story. William Vannest McGalliard started the first US Christmas tree farm in New Jersey in 1901, and the industry grew from there. US farms cut more than 14.5 million trees in 2022 and imported more than 3 million on top of that, according to the USDA Census of Agriculture. Oregon and North Carolina grew more than half of them. Growers sold $553 million in cut trees that year, up from $377 million in 2017.

The numbers reward patience. A tree takes 4 to 15 years to reach 6 or 7 feet, roughly 7 on average, so the tree in a living room this December was planted before most people had heard of the farm it came from. Close to 350 million trees are in the ground across US farms at any one time. Figures for how many households pick real over artificial vary and come mostly from the two opposing trade associations, so treat those splits with more caution than the USDA harvest count.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who invented the Christmas tree?

No single person invented the Christmas tree, and the earliest claims are disputed. Riga in Latvia dates a guild tree to 1510 and Tallinn in Estonia dates one to 1441, but both were public square trees that were danced around and burned, and historians question whether either festival was about Christmas. The documented custom of a decorated evergreen indoors grew up across the German states during the 1500s and 1600s.

What is a paradise tree?

A paradise tree was a fir hung with apples used as a stage prop in medieval German mystery plays about Adam and Eve. The apples stood for the fruit of the Garden of Eden, and wafers were later added to represent the communion host, after which the object picked up the name Christbaum. Many historians treat it as the ancestor of the Christmas tree, though scholar Carole Cusack rejects that link.

Did Martin Luther invent the Christmas tree?

Martin Luther did not invent the Christmas tree, and the story crediting him is a legend with no contemporary source. The usual version has Luther walking through a forest around 1536, noticing stars through the branches, and adding candles to a fir indoors to recreate the effect. It survives because it attaches a famous name to a custom nobody can trace to one person.

Who brought the Christmas tree to England?

Queen Charlotte brought the Christmas tree to England, not Prince Albert. Charlotte came from Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Germany and set up a candlelit yew in a tub at Queen's Lodge, Windsor, on Christmas Day 1800, decorated with sweetmeats, almonds, raisins, fruit and toys. Albert is widely credited instead because the 1848 Illustrated London News engraving of his family's tree is what made the custom popular.

How many Christmas trees are sold in the US each year?

US farms cut more than 14.5 million Christmas trees in 2022 and the country imported more than 3 million more, according to the USDA Census of Agriculture. Growers sold $553 million worth that year, up from $377 million in 2017, with Oregon and North Carolina producing more than half the total. Trade association estimates run higher, so the USDA figure is the more reliable number.

Why does a Christmas metal print make a great gift for people who decorate early for Christmas?

A Christmas metal print gift for people who decorate early for Christmas is a thoughtful, ready-to-display choice because it goes out the moment the boxes come down from the attic, arrives with no framing needed, and includes a matching 5mm mouse pad for their desk. Handcrafted in North Liberty, Iowa and shipping in 3 to 5 business days, this holiday season wall art is meaningful Christmas decor that still works last-minute.

Where can you get Christmas decor like this for a desk?

X2Metal offers Christmas designs printed on glossy ChromaLuxe metal and sized for a desk, with matching 5mm mouse pads. Every print ships with a tabletop stand, so it works on a nightstand, an open shelf or a console table with no nail required, and wall mount hardware is included for later. Browse the Christmas Cheer Metal Prints collection. Everything is handcrafted in North Liberty, Iowa.

About the author: Business Alchemist | Turning Ideas into Products, Brands & Businesses | Navid Malik. Navid is the founder of X2Metal, a metal print studio in North Liberty, Iowa creating bold, durable metal prints and 5mm mouse pads.

Sources: USDA Economic Research Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture Christmas tree data ↗; National Geographic, Why do we have Christmas trees ↗; Regency History, Did they have Christmas trees in the Regency ↗; whychristmas.com, The History of Christmas Trees ↗; National Christmas Tree Association, Quick Tree Facts ↗; Mental Floss, Why Are Red and Green the Colors of Christmas ↗. X2Metal is not affiliated with any organization mentioned in this post.

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