By Austin Price, Staff Writer
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, indeed it is the holiday season, filled with cheap decorations, artificial hot chocolate, toxic deicing fluid, and claustrophobic Christmas mass. Despite all the stress and chaos, Christmas is and always has been my favorite holiday. And so, I take you on an exploration of Winter Wonders and Christmas Customs to get you through the most stressful and expensive time of year. With ancient traditions and mystical legends, Christmas spirits and eerie stories, the holiday season is a time to enjoy some fairytales and omens while also keeping that cheery, Christmas spirit.
Our fables and folklore begin with the magic of pine trees. Pine trees have the unique ability to keep their green, sticky, needles throughout the winter while every other tree has lost its leaves and now stands empty and bare. Scientifically, pine trees survive the winter with their structure intact because of their pine needles. Pine needles, due to their small surface area, reduce water loss through a process called transpiration. They also have a waxy coating that protects them from drying winds. Pine needles contain a chemical that prevents animals from eating them. The dark color of the needles helps the pine trees absorb the heat from the sun, which again then aids in photosynthesis that happens in early spring.
While the pine needles keep the tree in its initial form, their roots also aid in their preservation throughout the cold weather. The roots of pine trees do not stop growing in the wintertime and instead search harder for moisture and nutrients while the ground is frozen and cold versus when it is warm, and the ground is soft. This helps them to survive and live through the winter season. The pine trees' bark also helps them to survive in the winter because coniferous trees, like pine trees, have thick bark to protect against the freezing cold in winter. They have cone-shaped branches that help them handle the heavy snowfall, and their pinecones protect the seeds during harsh winters. Their evergreen nature means that the needles can photosynthesize whenever there is sufficient sunlight.
While scientific reasons show that pine trees remain strong and preserved throughout the winter due to their physical attributes and structure, the legends behind the power of the pine trees are through the support of other forest creatures. In “Pine and the Winter Sparrow”, a story originally a told Cherokee tale, the forest creature, Sparrow, makes his journey throughout the forest. In a retelling of the coveted fairytale, Alexis York Lumbard writes, “Sparrow greets his Creator with a joyful song each and every morning even when he has injured his wing. He tells his family to fly south in autumn without him and that they will meet again in the spring. Although he is scared, shivering, and weak, he still manages to fly to Oak, Maple, Elm, and Aspen to ask for shelter and protection and only gets abrupt and sharp refusals in return. When Pine finds Sparrow sobbing beneath him, he asks him what is bothering him and offers to give him shelter: ‘If you don’t mind my sticky branches and my needle-sharp leaves, then all that I am and all that I have is yours.’ Sparrow has safe shelter throughout the winter, his family flies back and rejoins him in the spring, and the Creator rewards Pine with the ability to remain ‘evergreen evermore.”
Not only do pine trees serve as a haven for the sparrows, but they are also utilized by humans as our traditional Christmas trees. The evergreen fir tree has traditionally been used to celebrate winter festivals (both pagan and Christian) for thousands of years. Pagans used branches to decorate their homes during the winter solstice, as it made them think of the upcoming spring. Christians use evergreen trees as a sign of everlasting life with God. For the Christian denominations, the use of Christmas trees begins with German preacher Martin Luther, as he brought a pine tree home with him to decorate for Christmas.
According to Alpine Bible, “One night before Christmas, Martin was walking through the forest and looked up to see the stars shining through a pine tree’s branches. It was so beautiful that he went home with the tree. He told his children that it reminded him of Jesus, who left the stars of heaven to come to Earth at Christmas. Martin and his family hung candles on the tree as decorations to remind them of Jesus because Jesus is the light of the world. By the mid-1800’s decorating a pine tree on Christmas had become so popular that the King and Queen of England began decorating a Christmas tree.”
Pine trees also provide many symbols for a bright future ahead, after the dreary winter. The pine tree points to heaven. While all other trees get bushy and broad on top, the top of a pine tree narrows down to just a single branch. It is shaped like an arrow, pointing to the sky. This pointing tree reminds us to look up to heaven. The green pine also reminds us to look forward to a time when other trees will come back to life. The pine tree is a symbol of hope that spring will bring other trees back to life. Just as the pine tree causes us to look forward to new life in the Spring, Jesus encourages us to look forward to new life in Him.