Genesis 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Here I find myself at the end of my Christmas traditions realizing I have not addressed the Christmas tree tradition. This was not intentional but might have to do with dispelling emotional attachments of traditions with the revelation of origins. The single most prevalent image associated with Christmas just might well be the tree.

By the time the Christmas tree was introduced into the west, its origins and meaning had already undergone some substantial changes. As it was introduced into America, those origins and meanings gave way to the spectacle of Christmas and the elaborate decorating of the tree. The dressing of the tree itself became as much a part of the seasonal tradition as any other, with a dash of flare in individual inspiration. The tree became the center of the season.

It became widely known in the west from a family portrait of Queen Victoria. Her German Prince Albert husband brought the tradition from his homeland. The bulbs which are today molded plastic, blown glass or clothe wound Styrofoam, were originally apples.

The origin of apples was used in concert with a Christian play involving The Paradise Tree. The telling of the play began with the fall of man, eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The play ended with the foretelling of the birth of the Christ child. The use of the apple may have a strong influence to the common thought of the apple being Eve’s temptation fruit.