The significance of Christmas Decorations

Dec 24, 2020 Features / Columnists, News

By Allyiah Allicock

Christmas as we all know is the busiest time of the year. It is all about celebration, spending time with family and friends, surrounded by love and happiness. From the eating to drinking, to the opening of gifts and dancing to some good old Christmas tunes, it is all about having a good time. Part of what makes the holidays so beautiful are the decorations and lighting that adorn our homes and workplaces throughout the season but why do we decorate? What is the significance of our decorations?
Red and Green decorations
Holiday decors can be of different colours and style. However, most commonly used are the red and greens decorations. As research dictates, the colour green represents the eternal life of Jesus Christ and the continuation of life through the winter. Likewise, red traditionally symbolises the bloodshed by Jesus Christ during his crucifixion. But today the colours red and green are both used in non-religious and religious ways to celebrate the season.

The Christmas Tree
As we all know, the Christmas tree is a symbolic image of the holiday season. The evergreen fir tree has traditionally been used to celebrate winter festivity for both Pagans and Christians for thousands of years. The origin of the Christmas tree can be traced back to pagan traditions. The pagans used the evergreen plant to decorate their homes to celebrate the Winter Solstice as it made them think that good would glow again and summer is to come. While Christians use it as a sign of everlasting life with God. The Christmas tree was not always decorated with strings of electric lighting. In fact, while walking home from the woods one night; Martin Luther was amazed by the sight of the stars shinning above the evergreen plants that he decided to add small lit candles to his own fir tree. The candles at that time were the only form of heat and illumination during the winter’s long and cold months. As it is today, using candles to decorate the Christmas tree did become a popular trend. The tradition of adding ornaments to trees kicked off in Germany in the 1600s, when fruits and nuts were laid on evergreens.

The significance of Christmas Decorations

The Christmas lights
The Christmas trees usually have Christmas lighting, but it also used to decorate outside of our homes. Some people would normally go all decked out with Christmas lighting. But where did the lights originate from? It was Thomas Edison who invented the first ever electric Christmas lighting. Edison decorated his Menlo Park Laboratory – the home of his business with string of electric incandescent bulbs. But it was his partner, Edward H. Johnson who put the first string of electric lights together and strung them around his Christmas tree in 1882. They used 80 red, white and blue electric lights to adorn a tree and invited hundreds of people to see it in action. It wasn’t until several decades into the 1900s that they rose in popularity.

What about the wreaths we hang on our doors?
While the wreaths are usually placed on our doors and in our homes during the holiday, it was used as a decorative sign of Christmas for hundreds of years. It is made of evergreens, most often pine branches or holly. It is decorated with a variety of items. The wreaths itself carries a significant meaning. Its circular shape represents eternity, for it has no beginning and no end. The evergreen symbolises growth and everlasting life. The holly branches when used in a wreath represent the thorns on Jesus’s crown when he was crucified.

The Mistletoe
The Mistletoe is commonly used as a Christmas decoration. The tradition of hanging it in the house goes back to the times of the ancient Druids. Because mistletoe can blossom even during the frozen winter, the Druids saw it as a symbol of fertility and vitality. The kissing tradition was traced back to the English Servants. The catch was though, that anyone who stood under it was allowed to kiss, there could only be one kiss per berry, and the berry must be removed after the said kiss.

The tinsel is that beautiful colourful sparkly long décor that we commonly see selling in most of the stores around the holiday season. Back in the 1600s, when silver was precious at the time, the German in Nuremberg displayed strands of silver, which came to be known as tinsel on their Christmas trees. The decoration consists of thin strips of sparkling material attached to a thread.
Pic saved as tinsel