Ever wondered about the meaning behind Christmas decorations?

Have you ever looked at your Christmas tree and wondered where it came from? What about the tinsel?

There are actually very simple explanations for each. And it’s stemmed in years of history and tradition.

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THE MEANING BEHIND CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

There is more to Christmas decor than meets the eye, they are truly more than just a Christmas tree or a piece of tinsel and mistletoe. Almost every bit of the annual ritual for millions of celebrants around the world is somehow steeped in tradition and ancient legend.

Christine Ho of décor shop Party’s at The Square Shopping Centre in Sunninghill explains the origins of the festive decorations we see all around this time of year:

• Setting up your Christmas tree
  Traditionally the right time to put up a Christmas Tree is at the beginning of Advent, which is the fourth Sunday before Christmas. This year it fell on Sunday 27 November.
• The red and green colour scheme
  The decorations are as important as getting the date right, says Christine. But the legend around many of the elements of getting festive at home have some surprising origins. The colour scheme of red and green is believed to have originated from the Roman festival or Saturnalia where Holly, in red and green, was used as decorations. This apparently translated into matching décor styles and colour schemes, which stuck. Another theory credits Coca Cola, who also gave us Santa’s modern look and feel, with colouring their ads in red with green borders in the 1930’s.
• Light it up
  Christmas lights also have a somewhat commercial origin. Before electricity, candles were used on trees decoratively, sometimes with disastrous consequences. It was Thomas Edison’s business partner, Edward Johnson, who had the bright idea to adorn trees with lightbulbs. The rest is history with around 150 million sets of Christmas tree lights sold in the United States alone every year.
• Colourful tinsel
  Tinsel, necessary for every tree, stems from an age-old German tradition, and it used to be made from actual, flattened silver. Another piece of Germanic heritage, which found its way into festive celebrations, are garlands. Initially, during winter solstice, these were placed around to serve as inspiration to get through tough winters. It was later adopted as an element of the festive season.
• Striped candy canes
  The striped candy canes we all love used to be white. And it all started in the 1600’s when Germany adopted the Christmas tree as its symbolic celebration of Christmas. Incidentally, this was also the beginning of the Christmas tree, Christine says. Hanging the cane-shaped sweets from the tree became a tradition since. Nobody knows why stripes were introduced or whether it is true that a Cologne based sweet maker fashioned the hook after a shepherd’s rod or not.
• All sorts of decorations
  The origins of most of what we adorn Christmas trees with today can be traced back to the tradition’s roots. People ordinally hung apples, berries and other fruit from the trees, and these became today’s baubles and balls

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