|
|
|
Christmas holly decoration has been occupying an integral place in the Christmas celebration for ages! This page by Christmasonnet provides you all the popular facts regarding the use of Christmas holly. Scroll down this page to unveil the secret facts regarding the history of traditional Christmas holly that was popular amongst the Romans, Celtic druids, Christians and Germans.
The Roman Christmas Holly tradition goes like this – holly trees were considered as sacred to Saturn. So, during the winter solstice in the Saturnalia festival holly wreaths with bright red berries were offered as gifts to Saturn. The Christmas holiday | was directly modeled on this winter festival of Saturnalia. The usage of holly and other evergreens became popular among the Christians as a Christmas decoration, though there were protests from several Church Padres.
According to the Druids belief about Holly, it was a sacred tree. They harbored the notion that the holly tree stayed green throughout the year because it was specially favored by the sun. Christian legend states that one winter night the holly leaves grew miraculously out of season to conceal the Holy Family from Herod’s soldiers. From then onwards, holly has been an evergreen that symbolizes Christ’s gratitude.
In the Celtic history of holly there were the twin kings: the “Oak King” and the “Holly King”. They are always fighting against each other in a never ending fight to prove their supremacy. The Celtic sacred Oak trees are deciduous whereas, the English Christmaas holly trees or Ilex aquifolium remains evergreen throughout the year. As the harsh cold winter season starts, the Celts wondered at how the green leaves of Christmas Holly trees glistened on the barren land whilst the Oak is standing all naked after shedding its leaves as being defeated. This proved the supremacy of the Holly King.
According to the Christian belief of Christmas holly, the prickly leaves of the trees came to be linked with Jesus’ crown of thorns. The holly berries symbolized the drops of Jesus’ blood shed for humanity’s salvation. This interpretation is found in the popular Christmas carol “The Holly and the Ivy”. The Christian folklore also typified Christmas holly wood as the wood used to build Jesus’ holy cross.
Christian legend states that when the trees of the forests refused for being used for Jesus’ cross, only the Holly behaved normally thus allowing itself to be cut and shaped into a cross. Holly is used as a passion symbol in the pictures of various saints that represents that the saint is stressing upon Christ’s Passion or foretelling it. Some scholars even believe the fact that the word “holly” has been derived from the word “holy” meaning sacred.
The German belief of holly regards holly as Christdorn or in memory of Christ’s crown of thorns. The German legend states that the branches of holly were woven together to make the painful thorny crown of Jesus that was placed on Christ’s head while the soldiers mocked him by saying, “Hail, King of the Jews”. The holly berries used to be pure white in color but Christ’s blood stained them with a permanent crimson color.
For further information or queries on Christmas flowers, keep browsing the pages in our site Christmasonnet Happy Holidays!
|
