History of Christmas Wreath
The original meaning of word “wreath” is unity, circle of life, and eternity. In the ancient Rome the civilians would decorate wreaths and hang them on doors to represent victory when solders would return home from war. This is how the whole “hanging” wreaths began but the whole history started when new Christian Germanic people would make wreaths out of evergreen in December to calm their winter blue. They also liked to light up the fires in hopes of upcoming spring and renewal. It wasn’t until the 16th century when the Christians in Germany started to keep the tradition alive by practicing this symble in hopes of their new believe in Christ, the never ending light. From then on this practice has spread to all the Christians in the word and now is practiced by all.
The traditional wreath actually had 5 candles lined up inside the wreath. The center candle stood higher then the other four. Every week before Christmas, the family would give a prayer while lighting one candle every week. By Christmas Eve, 5th candle (being the taller one) would be lightened which represented baby Jesus being born as a savior to us all.
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February 23rd, 2012 at 1:15 am
Hi Luba, I enjoyed your post, its a great contribution to improve our knowledge about history of wreath.
Please correct the word ‘solders’ to ‘Soldiers’ in first paragraph