Editing Christmas tree (section)

=====''North America''=====
[[File:Riedesel Christmas Tree.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.3|General and Mrs. Riedesel celebrating Christmas.]]
The tradition was introduced to [[North America]] in the winter of 1781 by [[Germans in the American Revolution|Hessian soldiers]] stationed in the [[Province of Québec (1763–1791)]] to garrison the colony against [[Invasion of Canada (1775)|American attack]]. General [[Friedrich Adolf Riedesel]] and his wife, [[Frederika Charlotte Riedesel|the Baroness von Riedesel]], held a Christmas party for the officers at [[Sorel-Tracy|Sorel]], Quebec, delighting their guests with a fir tree decorated with candles and fruits.<ref name="Werner">{{cite book |title=In Pursuit of Liberty: Coming of Age in the American Revolution |first=Emmy E. |last=Werner |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XyB_tuMV7YMC&pg=PA115 |page=115 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-275-99306-1 }}</ref>

The Christmas tree became very common in the United States of America in the early 19th century. Dating from late 1812 or early 1813, the watercolor sketchbooks of [[John Lewis Krimmel]] contain perhaps the earliest depictions of a Christmas tree in American art, representing a family celebrating Christmas Eve in the [[Moravians|Moravian]] tradition.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harding |first=Anneliese |url=http://archive.org/details/johnlewiskrimmel0000hard |title=John Lewis Krimmel: Genre Artist of the Early Republic |publisher=Winterthur Publications |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-912724-25-6 |location=Winterthur, DE |pages=44–45 |language=en-US |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref> The first published image of a Christmas tree appeared in 1836 as the [[Book frontispiece|frontispiece]] to ''The Stranger's Gift'' by Hermann Bokum. The first mention of the Christmas tree in American literature was in a story in the 1836 edition of ''The Token and Atlantic Souvenir'', titled "New Year's Day", by [[Catherine Maria Sedgwick]], where she tells the story of a German maid decorating her mistress' tree. Also, a [[woodcut]] of the British royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, initially published in ''The Illustrated London News'' in December 1848, was copied in the United States at Christmas 1850, in ''[[Godey's Lady's Book]]''. ''Godey's'' copied it exactly, except for the removal of the Queen's tiara and Prince Albert's moustache, to remake the engraving into an American scene.<ref name="AFP">{{cite book |author=Alfred Lewis Shoemaker |orig-date=1959 |title=Christmas in Pennsylvania: a folk-cultural study |pages=52–53 |publisher=Stackpole Books |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-8117-0328-4 }}</ref> The republished ''Godey's'' image became the first widely circulated picture of a decorated evergreen Christmas tree in America. Art historian [[Karal Ann Marling]] called Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, shorn of their royal trappings, "the first influential American Christmas tree".<ref name="ADT">{{cite book |author=Karal Ann Marling |year=2000 |title=Merry Christmas! Celebrating America's greatest holiday |page=[https://archive.org/details/merrychristmas00kara/page/244 244] |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=978-0-674-00318-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/merrychristmas00kara/page/244 }}</ref> Folk-culture historian Alfred Lewis Shoemaker states, "In all of America there was no more important medium in spreading the Christmas tree in the decade 1850–60 than ''Godey's Lady's Book''". The image was reprinted in 1860, and by the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become even more common in America.<ref name="AFP"/>
[[File:Lewis Miller’s drawing showing Christmas tree.jpg|thumb|Drawing depicting family with their Christmas tree in 1809.]]

President [[Benjamin Harrison]] and his wife [[Caroline Harrison|Caroline]] put up the first [[White House Christmas Tree|White House Christmas tree]] in 1889.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/president/holiday/whtree|title=White House Tree|publisher=White House Archives|access-date=December 24, 2022}}</ref>

Several cities in the United States with German connections lay claim to that country's first Christmas tree. [[Windsor Locks, Connecticut]], claims that a Hessian soldier put up a Christmas tree in 1777 while imprisoned at the Noden-Reed House,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wfsb.com/clip/12040705/first-decorated-christmas-tree-in-windsor-locks|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151210223922/http://www.wfsb.com/clip/12040705/first-decorated-christmas-tree-in-windsor-locks|archive-date=10 December 2015|title=First Decorated Christmas Tree in Windsor Locks|author=Joseph Wenzel IV|publisher=WFSB|date=30 November 2015|access-date=2 December 2015}}</ref> while the "First Christmas Tree in America" is also claimed by [[Easton, Pennsylvania]], where German settlers purportedly erected a Christmas tree in 1816. In his diary, Matthew Zahm of [[Lancaster, Pennsylvania]], recorded the use of a Christmas tree in 1821, leading Lancaster to also lay claim to the first Christmas tree in America.<ref>{{cite web |title=The History of Christmas |work=Gareth Marples |url=http://www.thehistoryof.net/the-history-of-christmas.html |access-date=2 December 2006 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060628034631/http://www.thehistoryof.net/the-history-of-christmas.html |archive-date=28 June 2006 }}</ref> Other accounts credit [[Charles Follen]], a German immigrant to Boston, for being the first to introduce to America the custom of decorating a Christmas tree.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1996/12.12/ProfessorBrough.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990823204728/http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1996/12.12/ProfessorBrough.html |archive-date=23 August 1999 |title=Professor Brought Christmas Tree to New England |date=12 December 1996 |access-date=2 December 2012 |work=[[Harvard Gazette|Harvard University Gazette]] }}</ref> In 1847, August Imgard, a German immigrant living in [[Wooster, Ohio]] cut a [[blue spruce]] tree from a woods outside town, had the Wooster village tinsmith construct a star, and placed the tree in his house, decorating it with paper ornaments, gilded nuts and [[Kuchen]].<ref>{{cite web|title=They're Still Cheering Man Who Gave America Christmas Tree|url=http://www.the-daily-record.com/citizen%20news/2007/12/10/they-re-still-cheering-man-who-gave-america-christmas-tree-cleveland-ceremonies-honor-him-august-imgard-of-wooster-ohio|publisher=[[Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune]]|access-date=16 May 2013|date=24 December 1938|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219034027/http://www.the-daily-record.com/citizen%20news/2007/12/10/they-re-still-cheering-man-who-gave-america-christmas-tree-cleveland-ceremonies-honor-him-august-imgard-of-wooster-ohio|archive-date=19 December 2013|url-status=live}}</ref> German immigrant [[Charles Minnigerode]] accepted a position as a professor of humanities at the [[College of William & Mary]] in [[Williamsburg, Virginia]], in 1842, where he taught Latin and Greek. Entering into the social life of the [[Virginia Tidewater]], Minnigerode introduced the German custom of decorating an evergreen tree at Christmas at the home of law professor [[St. George Tucker]], thereby becoming another of many influences that prompted Americans to adopt the practice at about that time.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Minnigerode_Charles_1814-1894 |title=Charles Minnigerode (1814–1894) |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Virginia |publisher=[[Virginia Foundation for the Humanities]] |access-date=11 December 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160801022323/http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Minnigerode_Charles_1814-1894 |archive-date=1 August 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref> An 1853 article on Christmas customs in Pennsylvania defines them as mostly "German in origin", including the Christmas tree, which is "planted in a flower pot filled with earth, and its branches are covered with presents, chiefly of confectionary, for the younger members of the family." The article distinguishes between customs in different states, however, claiming that in New England generally "Christmas is not much celebrated", whereas in Pennsylvania and New York it is.<ref>'Notes and Queries', volume{{nbsp}}8 (217), 24 December 1853, p.615</ref>

When [[Edward Hibberd Johnson|Edward H. Johnson]] was vice president of the [[Edison Electric Light Company]], a predecessor of [[General Electric]], he created the first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree at his home in New York City in 1882. Johnson became the "Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oldchristmastreelights.com/history.htm|title=A Brief History of Electric Christmas Lighting in America|website=oldchristmastreelights.com|access-date=19 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141219174210/http://www.oldchristmastreelights.com/history.htm|archive-date=19 December 2014|url-status=live}}</ref>

The lyrics sung in the United States to the German tune {{lang|de|[[O Tannenbaum]]}} begin "O Christmas tree...", giving rise to the mistaken idea that the [[German language|German]] word {{lang|de|Tannenbaum}} (fir tree) means "Christmas tree", the German word for which is instead {{lang|de|Weihnachtsbaum}}.

<gallery class="center" heights="caption=" 18th="" to="" early="" 20th="" century="" representations"="">

File:The Christmas Tree - Godey's Lady's Book, December 1850.jpg|Copy of an 1848 engraving of the British royal family with their tree, modified and widely published in American magazine ''[[Godey's Lady's Book]]'', 1850.
File:1836-print-of-american-christmas-tree.jpg|First published image of a Christmas tree, frontispiece to Hermann Bokum's 1836 ''The Stranger's Gift''
File:The Christmas tree (Boston Public Library).jpg|''The Christmas tree'' by Winslow Homer, 1858
File:Gezin bij de kerstboom.jpg|Christmas in the Netherlands, {{c.|1899}}
File:1870 ChristmasTree byEhninger HarpersBazaar.jpeg|Illustration for ''[[Harper's Bazaar]]'', published 1 January 1870
File:Julekort, 1880.jpg|Christmas tree depicted as Christmas card by [[Louis Prang|Prang]] & Co. (Boston) 1880
File:Komissarzhevskaya Nora.jpg|[[Vera Komissarzhevskaya]] as Nora in [[Henrik Ibsen|Ibsen]]'s ''[[A Doll's House]]'' ({{c.|lk=no}} 1904). Photo by [[Elena Mrozovskaya]].
File:Lodovico and Maria Angelica Calderara 12800u original.jpg|An Italian-American family on Christmas, 1924
</gallery>