Christmas Trees & the Sun Dance, pt. 1

A two part, shallow dive into the need for Indigenous Christian symbolism

Recent emails I’ve received from Catholic companies tell me that advent is only weeks away and I should make sure I have my candles ordered, and while I’m visiting their site, have I seen the wonderful gift ideas they’ve curated for me? Perfect for renewing the spiritual life of anyone on my gift list. TV commercials tell me that there’s only 67 days until Christmas and have I gotten my hands on this year’s hottest electronic? Both sources, religious and secular, use the same imagery in their ads- a Christmas tree, beautifully decorated, glowing gently in a darkened room.

When I lived in Mississippi, some of my friends were the brand of Protestant who studiously referred to Easter as “Resurrection Sunday”, whose churches held “Harvest Festivals” instead of Trunk or Treats, and would shudder at the thought of paganism slipping into their worship of Christ. But all of them, even the most ardent zero-pagan policy holder, would have a Christmas tree up in their house come December. A Christmas tree, which ranks right up there with the word “Easter” and the timing of Hallowtide, with the depth of its pagan roots.

In researching for this article, I’ve read half a dozen pieces written by Protestant authors that go to meticulous lengths to rebrand the firmly pagan pedigree of the Christmas tree (here’s an example). But let’s face it, there’s no use pretending like Germanic and Scandinavian pagans didn’t worship the heck out of some trees. From the Donar Oak that St. Boniface famously hacked down, to archeological sites in Sweden where hundreds of bear and boar bones, the remnants of Viking Age sacrifices and offerings, lay under the decaying stump of ancient birch trees, Northern European pagans loved their sacred trees. And yet, the Christmas tree is unhesitantly welcomed in Christian homes each year in a way other pagan-y trappings aren’t.

And I have an idea why.

The problems my Protestant friends had with things like the word “Easter” and the notion of Halloween fell into two, often overlapping, categories. The first: too pagan. The word “Easter” is popularly understood to have originated with the word Eostare, the Germanic goddess of the dawn, of spring, and of fertility*. She was particularly celebrated during April, and it seems that as Christianity gained traction in her lands, the locals still used the word “Eostaremonath” (Eostare’s Month), but increasingly applied it to the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection. In fact, it’s only languages with heavy Germanic roots that use a word associated with Eostare, rather than a derivation of the word Passover, to name the day of Christ’s triumph over death. Linguistics lesson over, for the Resurrection Sunday crowd, as the theological fingerprints on the word “Easter” appear to be pagan ones, logic and piety follow that it should be stricken from the holiest of our holy days.

The second problem: too Catholic (which, in the view of some people, overlaps heavily with problem one). To us Catholics, Halloween is the start of Hallowtide, three days in which we give thanks to God for the holy example of His saints and ask for their heavenly intercession, while we pray for the souls of our beloved dead in Purgatory. The whole thing is fraught with Catholic theology, from the definition a saint, to the boundaries of intercessory prayer, to the very existence of Purgatory and the duty we have toward our dead. My Protestant friends who were uncomfortable with Halloween were, at the root, uncomfortable with Catholic dogma*.* The fact that the calendar placement of Hallowtide overlaid pagan observations like Samhain did not help either (see: problem one).

My favorite Christmas decoration- the ceramic tree that my great-grandmother made and painted herself. And it’s got a little music box inside!

But Christmas trees manage to sidestep both of these problems. First off, while the pagan roots of the practice are undeniable, there are so many ways to layer Christian symbolism on top of it. The evergreen of God’s love, the pine needle’s association with the nails of the Crucifixion, the lights on the tree reminding us that Christ is the light of the world, on and on the devout symbolism goes, bearing down on the tree so hard that all the paganism is squeezed out. It may at one time have been pagan, but there is so much to firmly tie it to Christ that the origins are incidental. Not so with poor “Easter”, who waves her pagan flag high and untethered to anything obviously Christian.

The second problem, the “Catholic problem”, doesn’t come too much into play here either, because Christmas is more or less celebrated by all Christians, Catholic and Protestant alike. We’re not talking about some Marian holy day or an observance that requires you to accept Purgatory, we’re dealing with Christmas here. And unless you’re a Jehovah’s Witness or an English Puritan from the 1600s, Christmas is comfortably common ground. A Christmas tree, unlike a May crowning or cemetery cleanups and picnics on November 2nd, is an artifact of a shared holiday. It’s familiar and communal and a reminder that we’re probably not all that different after all.

Add to the fact that, in the Northern hemisphere anyway, the glow and sentimental warmth of a Christmas tree is a welcome thing in the darkest part of the year, and I think it’s clear why they have been forgiven their pagan heritage and adopted as a beloved expression of Christian devotion.

If you bear with me, the next part of this essay will explore how we can take these concepts of being “too other”, whether pagan or Catholic, and apply them to the topic of Indigenous Christianity.

Until then, only 67 days until Christmas. Time to break out those Advent calendars and locate your tree stands.

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* another theory states that the word comes from the “germanization” of the Latin phrase “in albus”, meaning “dawns”

** many also rejected the celebration of the demonic and gory, which secular Halloween offers in spades, and I stand with my Protestant brothers and sisters on that one. That kind of Halloween is nothing I want any part of.