Editing Christmas tree (section)

===Origin of the modern Christmas tree===
[[File:Martin Luther’s Christmas Tree.jpg|thumb|right|[[Martin Luther]] is depicted with his family and friends in front of a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve]]

Modern Christmas trees originated in [[Central Europe]] and the [[Baltic states]], particularly [[Estonia]], [[Germany]] and [[Livonia]] (now [[Latvia]]) during the [[Renaissance]] in early modern Europe.<ref name="Perry2010"/><ref name="Lamb"/> Its 16th-century origins are sometimes associated with Protestant Christian reformer [[Martin Luther]], who is said to have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree.<ref name="History.com">{{cite web |title=History of Christmas Trees |url=http://www.history.com/topics/history-of-christmas-trees |publisher=[[History (U.S. TV channel)|History]] |access-date=15 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121225093550/http://www.history.com/topics/history-of-christmas-trees |archive-date=25 December 2012 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/christmaslegends0000haid |url-access=registration |first=Helen |last=Haidle |title=Christmas Legends to Remember' |publisher=David C Cook |year=2002 |isbn=978-1-56292-534-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/christmaslegends0000haid/page/119 119] }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=http://booheyheyks.google.com/books?id=YDx3g-05fNoC&lpg=PA22 |author=Debbie Trafton O'Neal, David LaRochelle |title=Before and After Christmas |publisher=Augsburg Fortress |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8066-4156-0 |page=22 }}{{Dead link|date=October 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The Christmas tree was first recorded to be used by German Lutherans in the 16th century, with records indicating that a Christmas tree was placed in the [[Strasbourg Cathedral|Cathedral of Strasbourg]] in 1539 under the leadership of the [[Protestant Reformers|Protestant Reformer]] [[Martin Bucer]].<ref name="Senn2012">{{cite book |last=Senn |first=Frank C. |title=Introduction to Christian Liturgy |date=2012 |publisher=Fortress Press |isbn=978-1-4514-2433-1 |page=118 |quote=The Christmas tree as we know it seemed to emerge in Lutheran lands in Germany in the sixteenth century. Although no specific city or town has been identified as the first to have a Christmas tree, records for the Cathedral of Strassburg indicate that a Christmas tree was set up in that church in 1539 during Martin Bucer's superintendency.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |year=1936 |title=The Christmas Tree |journal=Lutheran Spokesman |volume=29–32 |quote=The Christmas tree became a widespread custom among German Lutherans by the eighteenth century.}}</ref> The [[Moravian Church|Moravian Christians]] put lighted candles on those trees."<ref name="Kelly2010">{{cite book |last=Kelly |first=Joseph F. |date=2010 |title=The Feast of Christmas |publisher=Liturgical Press |isbn=978-0-8146-3932-0 |page=94 |quote=German Lutherans brought the decorated Christmas tree with them; the Moravians put lighted candles on those trees.}}</ref><ref name="Blainey2013">{{cite book |last=Blainey |first=Geoffrey |title=A Short History of Christianity |date=24 October 2013 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield Publishers]] |isbn=978-1-4422-2590-9 |page=418 |quote=Many Lutherans continued to set up a small fir tree as their Christmas tree, and it must have been a seasonal sight in Bach's Leipzig at a time when it was virtually unknown in England, and little known in those farmlands of North America where Lutheran immigrants congregated.}}</ref> The earliest known firmly dated representation of a Christmas tree is on the keystone sculpture of a private home in [[Turckheim]], Alsace (then part of the [[Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation]], today part of France), with the date 1576.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Le Vieux Turckheim|last=Ehrsam|first=Roger|publisher=Jérôme Do Bentzinger|year=1999|isbn=978-2-906238-83-1|location=Ville de Turckheim}}</ref>