The Christmas Tree is one of the most widely used symbols of the Holiday Season. Along with our version of Santa Claus, it only began to see widespread use in the 19th century.

Christmas celebrations in the United States often drew on the traditions of the culture from which our early settlers came. After the Revolutionary War, many of these traditions were associated with England, and some fell into disfavor. Some settlers had religious objections to the tradition of celebrating Christmas which pre-date this time.

There were problems in England, during their Civil War, when the Puritan Parliamentarians actually banned the observance. Riots broke out in Canterbury, and the insurrection seems to have consisted of the decoration of the town with holly by the Royalists. The Puritans brought similar restraint to the New World, banning the holiday in Boston from 1659 until 1681. Other colonies were free to celebrate the Holiday, with the German settlers of Pennsylvania being some of the most conspicuous. The Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania may be where the first Christmas trees appeared on American soil, although nearby Easton and Lancaster also make the claim. Connecticut claims the first Christmas tree on American soil was erected by a captured Hessian mercenary.

The tradition of the decorated tree goes back to at least the 16th century in Germany. The tree first appeared as a Holiday decoration in England during the reign of George III, who was also King of Hanover. It remained popular with the Anglo-German royal family and was copied widely by many in the United States by the mid-19th century. German immigrants helped spread this tradition and make it part of an American Christmas as well. August Imgard, a German immigrant, is credited with the first decoration of a tree with candy canes, in 1847. His grave, in Wooster, Ohio, is marked by a pine which is decorated every Christmas, in memory of this.

It was during this period that the caricatures of Santa Claus by American illustrator Thomas Nast gave us the version of Santa Claus which we are still familiar with today. By mid-century, Clement Moore’s A Visit from Saint Nicholas, published in 1823, was part of America’s Christmas tradition.

The Christmas Tree is also one of the most widely used jewelry motifs. While jewelry is adorned with all the traditional icons of Christmas-holly, Santa, reindeer-no other motif is probably featured on as many different pieces of jewelry as the Christmas Tree.

It would be hard to find a major maker of costume jewelry that has not made a piece featuring a Christmas Tree. While Weiss may be the best known (and most copied and counterfeited), Art, Coro, Eisenberg, Florenza, Hobe, Kramer, Lisner, Monet, and Napier have all made jewelry on this theme.

The shop owners on Ruby Lane have a fine selection of these vintage pieces, and many of our artisan jewelers make contemporary Christmas designs.