Every December, and even before that, you and your family give it a special place in the house. You decorate it carefully, light it in a colorful way and place gifts around it: the Christmas tree.
It is a focal point and reason to gather around it. You take care of it, take pictures that you share with your loved ones; you celebrate, feast on the delicious Christmas dinner and open the gifts with a lot of excitement. Your Christmas tree, decorated and bright, is witness to all that.
The Christmas festivities have incorporated throughout the centuries different elements from a variety of cultures, which gives the holidays a multicultural essence. It contains Italian, Spanish, Nordic, Germanic, Russian, North American, and English features, among others.
The Christmas tree has been attributed a Germanic origin. Initially, it was thought to be of Roman origin, because of the practice of decorating Roman houses with evergreen tree branches. Later, it was thought to have an origin in Germanic cultures because of their worship of trees and for establishing their sanctuaries in the middle of groves. However, there are references in a variety of Indo-European cultures of tree worship and natural elements in general.
In pre-Columbian America there was also worshipping of trees. There were even some sacred ones, such as the ceiba for the Mayan people. Trees were considered as "columns of heaven" and as a link with the gods. Today, some regions of the continent keep those cults.
The practice as we know it of taking a tree home and decorating it, spread throughout Europe and later it was brought to Mexico in the 19th century, during the so-called Second Mexican Empire. In 1864 the first Christmas tree as we know it, was installed in Chapultepec Castle.
Over time, different generations have been adopting and adapting the tradition of placing the Christmas tree at home, schools or businesses as part of the holiday celebrations.
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