xmastreeEach year Christians are faced with the surprisingly difficult question of when to put up the Christmas tree. The earth around us gives usa different answers. For retail stores, information technology is oft the day subsequently Halloween. For many offices and corporate spaces, information technology is the weekend subsequently Thanksgiving. This twelvemonth, the White Firm lit the National Christmas Tree on the Wed afterward Thanksgiving. And some Catholics either put up their tree around the First Dominicus of Appearance or on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December viii).

But the original custom was to put up a Christmas tree but on Christmas Eve. Even the federal government respected this custom: the first U.S. President to lite the National Christmas Tree, Calvin Coolidge, did so on Dec 24, 1923. The reason for this is simple. Contrary to popular belief, the Christmas tree was not a "baptism" of infidel Germanic yule traditions but an entirely Christian symbol.

In the Eastern Churches December 24 is the Feast of Adam and Eve, who co-ordinate to tradition felt really, really bad well-nigh the Fall and spent the rest of their hundreds of years on earth doing penance and eventually achieving sanctity. Although this feast has never been on the Latin calendar, medieval Roman Catholics took it to heart. Special mystery plays were held on this day that featured a Paradise Tree, a tree representing both the Tree of the Knowledge of Expert and Evil also equally the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden. The tree was decorated with apples (for the forbidden fruit) and sweets (for the Tree of Life). When the mystery plays were suppressed during the fifteenth century, the faithful moved the Paradise copse from the stage into their homes. The apples were later substituted for other circular objects (such every bit shiny red balls), and lights and the Star of Bethlehem were added, but the symbolism remained essentially the same.

Thus, our mod Christmas tree is actually the medieval Paradise tree, a reminder of the reason why God deemed it important to become human being in the first place and a foretaste of the sweet Tree from which our Lord'southward nascence would again enable us to taste. The lights of the Christmas tree as well form a glowing Jesse tree, with each low-cal representing one of Christ'south ancestors and the Star representing our Lord Himself.

So where does this leave us today? Kudos to those who tin can concur out to Dec 24 to observe the classic custom, just in many areas finding a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve takes a Christmas miracle, even if you'd settle for a Charlie Dark-brown version. So here are some practical options:

1. Purchase a tree when it is still bachelor and shop it (and water it) in the garage until Dec 24. Place it in your habitation and decorate it on Christmas Eve, earlier you head out for Midnight Mass;

two. Fudge a trivial and put the tree up on December 17, the first of the O Antiphons or Gold Nights (which we will talk about in a later post). On the first night leave information technology blank, and so on subsequent nights decorate it gradually until it is ready by Christmas Eve;

three. Fudge a little more and put the tree up on Dec 17 and decorate it then, but perhaps expect until Christmas Eve to turn on the lights;

4. Overcome your scrupulosity and put upwardly the Christmas tree when it is convenient for you. Later on all, family unit religious customs should be an occasion of joy and non some other reason for anxiety.

Over the years our family has experimented with all of the above. How nigh yours? Sound off on the Drinking with the Saints Facebook page.

And, of course, in that location is also the question of when to take the tree down. Here in our adopted dwelling of Waco, Texas, the city collects Christmas trees from immediately afterward Christmas until the twenty-four hours after Epiphany. It either mulches them or throws them into Lake Waco to create a habitat for catfish. The Christmas tree should exist the center of family festivity for the entire Twelve Days of Christmas, from December 25 until January v, the Vigil of the Epiphany. And and so I am glad that the Go along Waco Beautiful Chipping of the Green Christmas tree recycling service is operating on Jan 7, when participants are "provided a small pocketbook of Christmas tree mulch."

I must confess, though, that we don't always meet even this deadline. Instead of helping catfish, our trees terminate up sheltering rat snakes every bit the trees compost in a part of the g our children tend to avoid. The adept news is that the resulting soil is rich and fertile, and in the summer we occasionally find a lost ornament no longer subconscious behind green needles, ready for the next Christmas.