When to put your Christmas tree up and why do we have trees in our homes?

Why have we been rockin' around the Christmas tree for centuries?

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How lovely are thy branches.

Whether you love rocking around it or sneaking peeks at the presents stashed underneath it, for many, the Christmas tree holds a deeply significant part of the festive season.

Decorating it with family could be a sentimental memory you hold dear, but just when did we start putting Christmas trees up inside our homes? And is there a right time to put the tree up?

When should you put your Christmas tree up?

There’s no fixed date for when you should put your tree up.

A real Christmas tree, with proper care and regular watering, should last anywhere between and four to six weeks so you could argue you could put your tree up anytime from the last week of November to last you through the festive season.

If you want to keep your Christmas Tree up until twelfth night – usually January 5 or 6 depending on whether you count from Christmas Day or Boxing Day – you’re looking at putting your tree up around the first week of December.

We take our trees down on Twelfth Night as legend has it that spirits reside in Christmas trees and other festive greenery like holly.

After the festive period – which ends twelve days after Christmas – they should be released back into the wild. If you leave up the festive greenery after Twelfth Night, the harvest wouldn’t grow that year.

Why do we put Christmas trees up?

Nobody really knows why or when the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree inside your house began.

The fir tree – the proper name for a Christmas tree – was used thousands of years ago in different celebratory ways.

Pagans used branches of it to decorate their homes during the winter solstice, as it made them think of the spring to come.

The Romans used Fir Trees to decorate their temples at the festival of Saturnalia and Christians use it as a sign of everlasting life with God.

However, putting a whole tree up inside your home could have started with 16th century German preacher Martin Luther.

As the legend goes, one night before Christmas, he was walking through the forest and looked up to see the stars shining through the tree branches.

It was so beautiful, that he went home and told his children that it reminded him of Jesus, who left the stars of heaven to come to earth at Christmas.

Thus, Christmas trees were put up inside homes and decorated with lights.

However, other sources suggest the first Christmas tree can be traced back to several locations in Northern Europe including Estonia, and Latvia, in the year 1510.

According to documents from the Blackheads Fraternity chronicles and from various sources in Germany, Tallinn in Estonia and Riga in Latvia included celebrations around a decorated fir tree in the town squares.

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