Christmas Trees
Christmas trees are seen everywhere at Christmas time.
They are evergreen trees decorated with lights and other ornaments.
Joy to the world
Origin
Originating in Germany, a fir tree was decorated to represent the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden.
Early Christmas trees were decorated with fruits, flowers and candles, which were heavy on the tree branches. In the 1800’s German glass blowers began producing glass balls for decorations.
World records
Find out about the different claims to be the biggest Christmas tree in the world:
The world’s tallest living Christmas tree
A world record for the tallest living Christmas tree was set in December 2009 in Coeur d’Alene, ID, USA.
The tree (a 162-foot grand fir) was decorated with more than 40,000 lights along with a 10-foot star at the top. Two miles of electrical wiring connected the LED lights.
The world’s biggest Christmas tree shape
The biggest Christmas tree in the world is a decoration on the slopes of Monte Ingino, Gubbio, Italy.
In the shape of a fir tree, it is 800 metres high and 400 metres wide. It is made up of 500 lamps connected by 12000 metres of electric cables.
The world’s biggest floating Christmas tree
A Christmas tree lighting ceremony is held each year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at the end of November.
According to Guinness World Records, the 85-metre-tall tree decorated with 2.8 million colourful bulbs is the biggest one in the world.
Europe’s tallest Christmas tree
A Christmas tree, claimed to be Europe’s tallest, was switched on in the Portuguese city of Porto in 2007.
The 76-metre (250ft) high tree weighed 280 tons, had a total of 2,400 microbulbs, 13,000 round bulbs, 28,000 metres of illuminated tubing, 500 metres of neon and 600 strobe lights.
When God first created the world, it was not the same as it is today – everything was good.
The first man and woman, Adam and Eve, were told they could eat the fruit of any of the trees in the Garden of Eden except one. They disobeyed God and ate from that tree. That was the start of things going wrong and death came into the world.
That was why Jesus came – he was God’s son and he gave his life when he died on the cross – a tree – so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life in heaven.
The Bible says
1 Corinthians 15:21,22
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
Romans 5:6-8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.