If space is at a premium, small Christmas trees (3 ft. to 6 ft.) make sense. Mini Christmas trees are perfect for a tabletop in the foyer or as a centerpiece in the dining room. You’ll find 9-foot Christmas trees all the way up 12 ft., plus some even taller options. Choose fresh-cut, real Christmas trees to bring home the beauty of nature and the unmistakable scent of evergreen this holiday season. Each November and December, The Home Depot stores receive shipments of live Christmas trees from local growers on a regular basis. If you’re unsure which fresh-cut tree is the right height, shape and type for your home and lifestyle, our Real Christmas Tree Buying Guide is a great resource.
The songs now known specifically as carols were originally communal folk songs sung during celebrations such as “harvest tide” as well as Christmas. Traditionally, carols have often been based on medieval chord patterns, and it is this that gives them their uniquely characteristic musical sound. Some carols like “Personent hodie”, “Good King Wenceslas”, and “The Holly and the Ivy” can be traced directly back to the Middle Ages. “Adeste Fideles” appears in its current form in the mid-18th century, although the words may have originated in the 13th century.
In England, gifts were exchanged on New Year’s Day, and there was special Christmas ale. With Belk’s Christmas décor, it’s easier than ever to decorate your entire home for the holidays. We have everything you need to add Christmas spirit to each room of your house. Explore our Christmas shop and discover pre-lit faux Christmas trees in a variety of styles, widths and heights to suit every taste and location — even outdoors.
Pennsylvania German Settlers, pre-eminently the Moravian settlers of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Lititz in Pennsylvania and the Wachovia Settlements in North Carolina, were enthusiastic celebrators of Christmas. The Moravians in Bethlehem had the first Christmas trees in America as well as the first Nativity Scenes. However, in 17th century England, some groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the “trappings of popery” or the “rags of the Beast”. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old-style Christmas generosity.
In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Christmas “Sequence” or “Prose” was introduced in North European monasteries, developing under Bernard of Clairvaux into a sequence of rhymed stanzas. In the 12th century the Parisian monk Adam of St. Victor began to derive music from popular songs, introducing something closer to the traditional Christmas carol. Many Christians attend church services to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Up to the 1950s in the UK, many Christmas customs were restricted to the upper classes and better-off families. The mass of the population had not adopted many of the Christmas rituals that later became general. Full celebration of a family Christmas with all the trimmings only became widespread with increased prosperity from the 1950s.
