New Year C – New Year's Fir booklet

New Year

Nature’s gifts give way to presents

The presents that we place under our Christmas trees and New Year’s firs are more often than not a reflection of the consumer culture of the present age. But this was not always the case. Our ancestors used to place nature’s gifts under the tree – in other words those foodstuffs that were produced or harvested as the year drew to a close. These included dried fruits, hazelnuts, walnuts, slices of cake and loaves of bread. Decorated Christmas trees with colourfully wrapped gifts piled beneath them made their first appearance in Europe’s towns and cities in the eighteenth century. In villages and rural areas, on the other hand, the custom has generally only been known since the First World War. Christmas trees with candles on them are, however, a somewhat older tradition. The first written account of such a tree comes from Hanover in the second half of the seventeenth century. The symbolism of the festive tree is far older still and formed part of popular notions about the tree of life. A shooting star or comet showing the way to the place of Christ’s birth was also part of the decorated Christmas tree. In the years following the Second World War, a red five-pointed star was an essential element of the New Year’s Fir.

Janez Bogataj