The Christmas lights were switched on in London‘s Oxford Street this year on 7 November, the same date as last year, but a full week earlier than in 2005. This is early even by American standards - in the U. S., where commercial interests are notoriously impatient to begin the “festivel (or rather, holiday shopping) season, tradition until recently dictated that decorations in shops and streets were not put up till after Thanksgiving, on the last Thursday of November.
History of a tree Legend has it that Martin Luther began the tradition of decorating trees to celebrate Christmas. One Christmas Eve in the late 1520s, so the story goes, he was walking through snow-covered woods and was struck by the beauty of a group of small fir trees, their branches, dusted with snow. When he got home, he set up a little tree indoors for his family, and decorated it with lighted candles.
Whatever the substance in this story, the Christmas tree only caught on in Britain when the German Prince Albert married the young Queen Victoria in 1840. Christmas trees became the rage after illustrated magazines published a picture of the royal couple and their children grouped around a tabletop tree decorated with candles and glass ornaments. And because the Christmas tree is only tangentially connected with the Christian Christmas story, it has become a shared festive symbol around the world, and across faiths.
Father Christmas or Santa Claus is another relatively new tradition. So distinctive is he and so recognisable are his red jacket and trousers with their white edging, his red hat, curly white beard and big black boots, that it is hard to appreciate that in his current incarnation he dates back only to the 20th Century. In Charles Dickens‘s day, Father Christmas wore dark green, and was garlanded in holly, making more obvious his relationship to the pagan figures from whom he is descended. Santa‘s red coat and white trim only became traditional in the 1930s.
Ostentation Also, have you ever considered why, on countless Christmas cards, the figure of the Virgin Mary in a familiar Italian Renaissance painting - like the 15th Century Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio‘s Adoration of the Magi, for instance is invariably depicted dressed in a cloak or robe coloured the deepest blue?
Renaissance works of art were intended ostentatiously to advertise the power and wealth of the person or family who commissioned and paid for them. And in the 15th-century, all paint hues were not perceived as equal, most striking of expensive colours was ultramarine blue. The painting was completed in 1488. The Virgin, her baby son perched on her knee, is enveloped in the gorgeous folds of a blue cloak, thereby announcing the lavishness of the foundation. At her feet, a prominent merchant donor kneels in worship, wearing as his badge of affluence a toning coat of deepest blue.
The Spedale degli Innocenti, where Ghirlandaio‘s Adoration of the Magi still hangs today, is the oldest known charitable organisation devoted continuously to the welfare of children. Charity and genuine compassion could, therefore, go hand in hand with expenditure during Christmas. At the heart of the consumer culture, as we enjoy the glittering Christmas lights and the buzz of excitement, it is an issue with which we continue to grapple today.
