Queen Charlotte's Christmas trees shaped a holiday tradition
She introduced the tradition of decorating Christmas trees to the English royal court, and the custom spread from there
The following article appeared in the December 16, 2024, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.
How the city of Charlotte's namesake helped spark the global love of Christmas trees
You probably didn’t know this, but Queen Charlotte, the city’s namesake, played an important role in the popularization of Christmas trees. (Photo of Queen Charlotte statue courtesy of Charlotte Douglas International Airport)
by John Short
Charlotte is not normally the city most folks think of when it comes to beloved Christmas traditions. Since 1880, Charlotte has experienced only four White Christmases, and you’re more likely to go on a bike ride than a sleigh ride on Dec. 24.
But for those willing to look a little deeper, Charlotte can boast a few yuletide bona fides. Down the road in Gastonia (just past McAdenville, also known as “Christmastown USA”) sat what at one time was the biggest Christmas ornament factory in the world. Charlotte’s “Singing Christmas Tree” was the first production of its kind in the United States when it began and celebrated its 70th anniversary this year.
However, Charlotte’s history with Christmas trees goes back centuries. The city’s namesake, Queen Charlotte, is credited with bringing the tradition of Christmas tree decoration to the royal court in England, where it flourished into the tradition celebrated around the globe today.
In 1761, Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Streilitz in Germany became Queen Charlotte, wife to King George III. Charlotte brought many traditions and interests from her home country to the English court, including music (hosting an 8-year-old Mozart in 1764), as well as botany (the bird of paradise flower was named Strelitzia reginae after the Queen in 1788).
Decades into her reign, in 1800, these interests in plants and German traditions came together when she made the decision to bring the German tradition of decorating a “yew” branch to the Queen’s Lodge at Windsor.
In the decades prior to Queen Charlotte’s move to England, a popular tradition in southern Germany was to illuminate trees by candlelight. More specifically, in Charlotte’s home region of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the tradition included decorating a single, large branch of a yew tree.
While a yew is not quite the towering evergreen or fir trees we consider traditional Christmas trees today, the act of bringing a live plant into the court was revolutionary enough. Especially given that at this time, few in Britain were aware of the German tradition of tree decoration, and even the celebration of Christmas itself was rarely mentioned in the English press of the time.
But Queen Charlotte chose the Christmas season of 1800 to place a yew tree in a large tub in one of the drawing rooms at Kew Palace (a refuge of King George III), as part of a Christmas lunch she hosted for children of the royals, to which she had also invited 60 poor families from the area.
One of the gentlemen in attendance, Dr. John Watkins, wrote of the occasion:
Sixty poor families had a substantial dinner given them and in the evening the children of the principal families in the neighbourhood were invited to an entertainment at the Lodge. Here, among other amusing objects for the gratification of the juvenile visitors, in the middle of the room stood an immense tub with a yew tree placed in it, from the branches of which hung bunches of sweetmeats, almonds and raisins in papers, fruits and toys most tastefully arranged and the whole illuminated by small wax candles.
The tradition was well-received, and the queen would continue to stand up trees at royal residences. The tradition was beloved enough by the royal family to continue on after her death in 1818. The tradition of the trees made an impression on one particular granddaughter of Queen Charlotte’s, Princess Victoria, who wrote in her diary of her fondness for the Christmas trees at her home at Kensington Palace as a teenager.
This formative impression on the future Queen Victoria would be a key catalyst for the Christmas tree tradition still celebrated today around the world.
Queen Victoria, the granddaughter of Queen Charlotte, depicted around a decorated Christmas tree with Prince Albert and their children in December 1848. Queen Victoria helped popularize the German tradition of decorating trees after having fond memories of the practice that Queen Charlotte had instituted at royal residences. (Public domain image from the Webster Museum/Wikimedia Commons)
By 1840, when the now-Queen Victoria married Prince Albert — himself originally from Southern Germany — public interest in the young couple’s personal lives was at a fever pitch. British royal watchers were attentive to every detail of the life of the young couple, and when the young prince requested that fir trees from his native Germany be delivered to the court as Christmas trees, the English public began to mimic the practice, placing trees in their own homes. A tradition was born.
So this Christmas, don’t bemoan the non-white Christmas of temperate weather. Think instead of Charlotte’s connection to the origins of one of the most iconic traditions of the season.
John Short is a freelance writer and co-host of The Charlotte Podcast who loves digging up Charlotte’s past and pondering its future. Say hey when you see him on the streetcar.
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