It is nearly time to start thinking about decorating the house for Christmas and the centre of the Christmas decorations in most homes is of course the Christmas tree. Many of us love the fun of going to somewhere like this real Christmas trees Northampton based farm https://welfordchristmastreefarm.co.uk/ to pick out the perfect tree to adorn our home with for the festive season.
Many of the Christmas traditions that we have however go back long before Christmas itself. Before Christianity changed the celebrations and festivals across Europe, people would gather to celebrate Yule and midwinter – fires would be lit on hillsides and tales would be told, people would also bring greenery into the home to symbolise the life in the midst of the cold weather and a Christmas tree is something that goes all the way back to these early midwinter celebrations.
Christmas is a time of year when our ancestors, without electric lighting or central heating, would have really felt the cold and much of the food that they would have been able to eat in the warmer months would not have been available, so raising spirits in the winter was important to help people get through the long months of cold and dark.
Feasting, often on an animal as not much else would have been around at the time was also traditionally done, something that we still partake in to this day, as well as the candles that we light at Christmas, letting the light in the same way that they would have lit fires.