CHAPTER XXXII 

 CHRISTMAS TREES AND OTHER PINE TREES 



WHEN winter grips our land it is fitting to dis- 

 course about the sweet and refreshing pine trees 

 which are especially associated in northern climes with 

 the celebration of Christmas. The delicious perfume 

 which they diffuse is destructive both of microbes and 

 noxious insects, whilst they are always linked in our 

 minds with glorious mountain-sides or breezy moorland, 

 or the delightful sand dunes and grey rocks of the sunny 

 shores of the Mediterranean. The decoration of trees 

 on days of festival and joyful celebration with garlands, 

 lamps, and gifts is an immemorial custom of mankind, 

 and it is probably merely the accident of its being con- 

 venient in shape, evergreen, cleanly, and sweet-smelling 

 that has led to the selection of the common spruce as 

 the " Christmas tree." It was not until the reign of 

 Queen Victoria that the custom of bringing a young 

 spruce fir into the house, growing in its special flower- 

 pot, and then decorating it and making it the centre 

 of a children's festival, became established in England. 

 The 25th of December was celebrated in pre-Christian 

 times in Northern Europe as the beginning of the New 

 Year, and it was only after much opposition adopted by 

 the Roman Church in the sixth century as a feast day 

 in celebration of the birth of Christ. The Puritans 

 rejected it as idolatrous, but its observance was restored 



