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Martin Luther did not invent the Christmas tree

 Not as it's known in German lore that spread from there to elsewhere in Europe, then the US.

Try 275 years or so later.

It's also not just that part of German-based Christmas myth that's wrong.

The piece also notes that, contra anything you might think have come from Hudson Valley Dutch and Washington Irving, that Santa Claus didn't take off until the Civil War, courtesy Thomas Nast.

This piece says that an "Adam Tree," decorated with ornaments we would not tie to Christmas and without candles, came into being for a winter celebration in Germany of them about the time of Luther. More here on that, which notes that they were celebrated as SAINT Adam and Eve in the Catholicism of Luther's time. I know they're not considered Lutheran saints today and am unaware of them being Catholic ones. And, per History, the use of evergreen boughs as decorations goes back to Saturnalia. (Ancient Egypt used fresh palm rushes at a festival for Ra, so Sukkoth needs to move aside as well.)

And, American-German worshipers of British monarch? It was NOT Prince Albert who popularized the tree in the UK. Think earlier.



This post first appeared on The Philosophy Of The Socratic Gadfly, please read the originial post: here

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Martin Luther did not invent the Christmas tree

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