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Christmas Tree Day
"O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree
How lovely are thy branches
O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree
How lovely are thy branches."
~ Traditional
Counting down to Christmas! Pinecones are the natural ornaments of the evergreen pine during Yuletide, a favorite tree along with fir and spruce for outdoor or indoor decorating of holiday and Christmas trees! The modern custom of decorated trees has early origins in western Germany. A popular German medieval play about Adam and Eve featured a "paradise tree," a fir tree hung with apples to represent the Garden of Eden. Over time, people began putting up paradise trees of their own on Christmas Eve, the religious feast day of Adam and Eve, adding candles and communion wafers to symbolize Holy Communion and Christ as the light of the world. By the 1800s, candle-lit branches hung with cookies and other treats and hand-made ornaments had become popular tree decor in Europe during Christmas season. But it wasn't until a sketch of Queen Victoria and her family next to a Christmas tree in their home in the 1840s (a custom introduced by Victoria's husband, Prince Albert), that indoor Christmas tree decorating became populaized around the English-speaking world. This beautifully designed tartan richly depicts the pine's winter adornment in its most natural state, just waiting for a frosting of snow 🎄
Christmas Tree Day marks the day and period around which many people choose to decorate trees with lights and ornaments, both indoors and out.
The members of the pine family (pines, spruces, firs, cedars, larches, etc...) are popular choices for Christmas trees and for decorations associated with winter festivals predating the common era.
The pines have cones that are imbricate (with scales overlapping each other like fish scales). The scales are spirally arranged in Fibonacci number ratios.
Because of their widespread occurrence, conifer cones have been a traditional part of the arts and crafts of cultures where conifers are common. Examples of their use includes seasonal wreaths and decorations, fire starters, bird feeders, toys, etc. An intriguing fact about pine cones is that they open and close based on their level of dryness.
Because of this you can use some species of pine cones to predict the weather. Pinecones are the procreative parts of pine trees. Male versions produce pollen, and pollenated female forms yield seeds. Under dry conditions, the outer parts of the cones' scales dry more than the inner parts, causing the cone to open as dry, calm weather provide a better environment for seed dispersal.
In wet weather, the scales absorb moisture and swell shut, shielding the seeds until dryer days. Pinecones continue to exhibit this behavior even off the tree.
By Carol A.L. Martin, this tartan uses the blues and greens of the tree's needles with interspersed colours of the pine cones.
For a great science project to use a standing pinecone as a hygrometer to measure humidity levels, click the pinecones!