The Favorite Living Fir Tree

Boy decorating a live Christmas tree. photo credit John Morgan

       The fir is most commonly mentioned in accounts of the evolution of the Christmas tree. One reason may be that the balsam fir twigs, more than any other evergreen twigs, resemble crosses. Also, fir trees were abundant in the forest areas of western Germany where the custom apparently originated, as well as in New England and New York State here in the U.S. Then too, the word "fir" was widely used to designate several different kinds of cone-bearing trees long before botanical classification became standardized and well known. Even today most people are unable to identify various evergreens, frequently calling all of them "firs" or "pines." 

       Extracts from the fir, especially balsam fir, were long used for medicinal purposes probably further reason for its early popularity. Certainly the perfume of the balsam fir is one of its out-standing features. 

       A number of legends, poems, songs, and stories are based on the fir tree. "The Fir Tree" is one of the tales of the famous Danish writer of children's stories, Hans Christian Andersen. And a popular old German folk festival song, "O Tannenbaum," offers a hymn of praise to the fir tree, still favored today 

       At any rate, if the fir tree, did actually predominate as the early Christmas tree, then our forefathers selected wisely, for the fir is still one of the favorites of today. In this country for many years firs, spruces, and cedars were the common Christmas trees, with balsam fir the unchallenged leader until 1955. The somewhat similar favorite from the West, Douglas-fir, overtook balsam fir in the U.S. about that time. 

       And since then, the public taste has been shifting more to artificial trees, real firs and pines together account for about 20 percent of the U.S. Christmas trees used in American homes. The artificial copies of these tree types make up about eighty percent of trees displayed.

       Scotch pines and Douglas firs and Fraser firs are the three favorite living trees sold in the United States. These three trees make up seventy percent of all living Christmas trees sold in this country today.