Dr.
Tille regards them as coming from a union of two elements: the old Roman
custom of decking houses with laurels and green trees at the Kalends of
January, and the popular belief that every Christmas Eve apple and other
trees blossomed and bore fruit.{22}
Before the advent of the Christmas-tree proper--a fir with lights and
ornaments often imitating and always suggesting flowers and fruit--it
was customary to put trees like cherry or hawthorn into water or into
pots indoors, so that they might bud and blossom at New Year or
Christmas.{23} Even to-day the practice of picking boughs in order that
they may blossom at Christmas is to be found in some parts of Austria.
In Carinthia girls on St. Lucia's Day (December 13) stick a
cherry-branch into wet sand; if it blooms at Christmas their wishes will
be fulfilled. In other parts the branches--pear as well as cherry--are
picked on St. Barbara's Day (December 4), and in South Tyrol
cherry-trees are manured with lime on the first Thursday in Advent so
that they may blossom at Christmas.{24} The custom may have had to do
with legendary lore about the marvellous transformation of Nature on the
night of Christ's birth, when the rivers ran wine instead of water and
trees stood in full blossom in spite of ice and snow.
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