If you are like me, you probably grew up being told that the Christmas tree was a pagan practice based on either Roman and/or Germanic customs. This video explains that this is completely wrong: the earliest record of what was probably a Christmas tree is from 1419 in the Alsace and Baden regions straddling the modern borders of France and Germany, with some indication that the practice might have extended back into the 1300s. (They were certainly decorating and displaying Christmas trees by 1521). But in any case, it is a practice that came suddenly into existence and then spread into other parts of Europe well after the Christianization of Europe.
On the other hand, we also have a very Christian origin of the Christmas tree associated with Saint Boniface. The story goes that Boniface had ventured into Central Europe and encountered a village or town of Goths about to sacrifice a boy to an oak tree which they held to be holy to Thor and who believed that anyone that harmed the tree would be struck dead. In a contest of religions, Boniface then started to cut down the oak tree when suddenly a huge gust of wind finished the job for him. As the story goes, the oak tree was then used to build a church for his new converts. But he supposedly also found a small fir tree growing at the base of the tree, and told the Goths that they were to take the fir tree as the symbol of their new religion. While the account of Saint Boniface cutting down the oak has been extant since the 8th Century, the account of the fir tree appears to be a modern invention, first appearing in a story published in 1891 in Scribner's Magazine.
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