Why do people put up Christmas trees?

Reasons for Christmas Trees

Christmas trees are a throwback to Pagan times when at the winter solstace evergreen trees would be decorated as they were the only thing left that wasn't dead in the winter. Hence, the promise of renewed life and the birth of the new year, as Jesus is the promise of eternal life, and Christmas celebrates his birth.

Here are more answers from WikiAnswers contributors:

• Some have thought that because of Abraham planting a tree in Gen 21:33 and calling on the name of the eternal God that the tree became part of remembering our covenant with God.

• Since before Christmas existed, people used plants that stay green all year to decorate their homes in the winter. Hanging evergreen boughs over a door was a reminder of springtime during the cold, dark winter. But it wasn't until the 16th century in Germany that Christians started using trees as decorations around Christmas. German settlers in Pennsylvania brought the first Christmas trees to America in the late 1700s, but they weren't common until after 1834. That's when Prince Albert, the German husband of Britain's Queen Victoria, first brought a Christmas tree to Windsor Castle. The royal family was very popular, so many people wanted to have a Christmas tree like the royals -- even Americans! The idea stuck, and people have decorated trees at Christmas ever since.

• How can I find out why there are so many traditions in christmas?
• Where was the first Yankee Swap held?
• How can a large blue spruce Christmas tree be donated to the White House for Christmas or to another place like Time Square?