Dressing The Tree in 1902

This old illustration from 1870,
Harper's Bazaar depicts real candles
attached to a living Christmas tree.

How it May Be Done to Secure The Best Effects

      The Woman's Home Companion gives some hints on decorating a Christmas tree safely. It is well known that when tapers are fixed to the laden branches, after the gifts are taken off the lightened boughs spring up and often set each other on fire. The mode indicated here avoids all that. 

      "First," says the Companion, "thin cut the branches sufficiently to allow the gifts to show to good advantage. Then with an auger bore holes in a spiral row about four or five inches apart the whole length of the trunk. Have some flat sticks prepared, an inch wide and half an inch thick, and of varing lengths. Sharpen one end, and insert them according to their graduated lengths, giving each a blow or two with a hammer to insure its being firmly fixed. Paint them green. At the outer end the candle holder is firmly fixed."

      To the topmost branch before the tree is put up, affix the "Christ-child" --the winged doll, secured by slight rubber bands under the wings. Gilt paper stars and crescents are pretty, affixed here and there to the boughs. Gay silk and tarleton bags full of nuts and candy, oranges and apples, bundles of stick candy tied with ribbons, little baskets and cornucopias of figs and raisins, gilded walnuts, popcorn balls, strings of popcorn and cranberries, candy canes, paper chains--all these and other things they will suggest will decorate a tree so prettily that the children for whose pleasure it is constructed will forget, in their delight, that it is not weighted down with costly gifts. The Banner-Democrat. (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.), 25 Dec. 1902.

Decorating Early Christmas Trees:

• Christmas Tree Decoration and It's History
• Christmas Tree Traditions
• The Chronological History of The Christmas Tree