I'm Mimi Fotz, and this is Hello from the Van. Welcome to our first ever podcast. You're probably wondering why it is called Hello from the Van? Well, I'd love to tell you. I'm a mom. I spend a lot of my time in the van, and when I talk to people from my van using my phone, I normally say hello from the van. And that's how most of my conversations start these days, as I run kids from one place to another. So, no, this isn't a podcast about van life. This isn't a podcast about living out of a van, although I kind of do. This is a podcast for moms and kids from a mom who drives her kids around a lot. And these are the thoughts that I have in my van. Today starts the first in a series called The 12 Days of Christmas. Each day we will do a new topic or a new story that will get us to December 24th. So for you parents out there, at the beginning of each episode, I will give you an approximation of about the length of the episode and our topic involved, whether it's a story or a podcast or whatever it is. This episode is about 17 minutes long. Parents plan accordingly. And for you kids, if you're wondering where is she getting all of this information, know that at the end of each episode, I will cite my sources. As a former teacher, this is very important to me. It's important to me that you know that I'm not just here with a microphone shooting the breeze. I am bringing you information that you can look up and research yourself. So without further ado, let's get into some Christmas trees. Now, something that you need to know about me is that I am anaphylactic to pine trees, specifically pine sap. If I get it on me, I will go into what's called anaphylaxis. Basically, my body says, I don't know what this is, and it tries to just take care of it the best way it knows how, which is a lot of uh lack of breathing, my face swells up, my hands swell up, my eyes swell up. It gets really bad. At my house, we cannot have a real Christmas tree. So a couple weeks ago, we were putting up our fake Christmas tree for, you know, the second, third year in a row. And I started thinking about how sad I was that we couldn't just go out into the wilderness and chop down our own tree like we'd done before, with a permit, of course. And I was really sad about it, and I thought, oh, how did we get here? How do I even have a fake tree inside my house? How is that even a thing? And that is what started the research. History is basically the words of those who write the loudest. And with that in mind, we know that the written history of the Christmas tree dates back strongly to at least the 1400s. You see, back then, December 24th wasn't known as Christmas Eve. It was known as the Feast Day of Adam and Eve. It was just another way to celebrate Christianity. There are writings that say that a group of German bakers on December 24th in the year 1419 decorated a tree with baked treats, tinsel, and apples. A lot like the way that my grandma used to decorate trees with tinsel and candy canes and styrofoam apples. But again, it was the eighties, so maybe that was just an eighties thing. Anyhow, let's get back to the 1400s. In 1419, that baker's guild we talked about, the tree that they decorated, it wasn't called a Christmas tree because it wasn't Christmas technically then. It was the feast day of Adam and Eve, and their Christmas tree was called a paradise tree, named after paradise plays, that again had to do with Adam and Eve. The through line here is religion and the Bible. The Christmas tree has been connected to both for a very, very long time. The interesting thing about the Christmas tree is that specific religions each have their own origin story, if you will. It's like, you know how there's a bunch of different versions of Spider-Man? It's kind of like that. All the Christmas trees are standing around pointing at each other going, wait, I'm the original Christmas tree. No, I'm the original Christmas tree. Basically, before the 1400s, we're not quite sure what the history of the Christmas tree is. But what we do know is that every single continent has some sort of something that's kind of like a Christmas tree, if that makes sense. It's almost like bread. Every single continent has some version of bread. It's kind of like that. Everywhere has kind of their own version of the Christmas tree. Which one's the real one? I don't know. But I do know that the modern Christmas tree starts in Germany in the 1400s. So maybe we just stick with that. Now, remember our story about the German Bakers Guild all the way back in 1419? Well, that wasn't a one-off. They just kept going all the way through the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. That's 400 years. 400 years of celebrating on December 24th, of doing miracle plays, celebrating the Christian calendar, of doing all of these wonderful things based around this season and December 24th. So in the 1700s, these Christmas trees really took off and they started to be brought into the homes in Austria and Germany. So it wasn't just something that was done as part of celebrations, it was something that was then brought in for the season. Later on in the 1700s, they would begin to add candles to put light on their Christmas tree. And that was a really popular in France. It wasn't until the 1800s that German settlers brought the Christmas tree as we know it to the United States. It rapidly grew from just something hung from the ceiling or something put on a tabletop to something that was done floor to ceiling. So basically, these small little German Christmas trees came to the United States and got a whole lot bigger. But they weren't quite popular, not just yet. You see, they needed some sort of catalyst to make them popular across the whole of the United States. And that catalyst was Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. In December of 1848, they had what's called an etching or an engraving done of them in front of their Christmas tree. Now, this is the closest thing that they had all the way back then to a mass-produced picture or a photograph. And what they would do is that an artist would draw a scene. They would publish it in the newspaper. This drawing was very British. It was quintessentially British in 1848. But it made it into a book two years later, into Goti's Lady's book. That's the closest thing that they had to like Instagram back then. It made it into it. But one of the things that the artist did is he Americanized the image. So it looked more American and less British. I'm not quite sure what more American and less British means in the context of the 1840s, but apparently it was a big hit with Americans. And they all said, hey, you know what? If it's good enough for Victoria and Albert, it's good enough for us. And it got super, super popular. That just really kicked off Christmas trees in the United States. Folk culture historian Alfred Lewis Shoemaker said that there was no more important medium in spreading the Christmas tree in the decade 1850 to 1860 than this image that was printed in Goldie's Lady's book. The image was also reprinted in 1860, and by the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become more common than it was not in an American household. By the year 1889, President Benjamin Harris of the United States and his wife Carolyn had put a Christmas tree in the White House even. Would you be surprised to learn that the first artificial Christmas tree was developed in Germany in the 19th century? About the same time that the Christmas tree came to the United States and was spread widely here by German immigrants. It was also they were also developing artificial Christmas trees back in Germany. These early examples were made of goose feathers and were dyed green as one response by Germans to continued deforestation. So basically, they were worried that they didn't have enough trees to go around. Because keep in mind that Christmas trees have been a tradition in Germany by this time for five, six, seven hundred years. So they were worried about deforestation or losing too many trees every year. So they started making them out of feathers. And they would often have branches with artificial red berries that would act as candle holders on them, which is kind of cool. Over the years, other styles of artificial Christmas trees have evolved and become very, very popular. So in the 19th century, it is goose feathers and dye and different things like that to make an artificial Christmas tree. But then we hit the Great Depression. And in the 1930s, the US based company, the Addis Brush Company, created the first artificial Christmas tree that we know of that is that looks a lot like the ones we have today from brush bristles. It's really funny because they were a toilet brush company. It was the Great Depression, and they needed to sell toilet brushes. But people didn't want to buy toilet brushes, but they would buy a Christmas tree. So they basically pivot. This is the greatest marketing pivot of all time. Listen, if we can't sell toilet brushes, let's turn them into Christmas trees. And people bought it. They bought it. And honestly, I was looking at my Christmas tree after I was doing this research, and you know what? It kind of does look like toilet brushes. I can't unsee it, you guys. I can't unsee it. Another type of artificial Christmas tree that came around at this time was the aluminum Christmas tree. You've probably seen something like this. If you've ever seen um Charlie Brown's Christmas, there's a good representation of it in there. The aluminum Christmas trees became very popular in the 1950s, the late 1950s. The majority of them were actually manufactured in Wisconsin. Most modern Christmas trees are made in China and are made of plastic, PVC, and wire. Have you ever wondered which is better for the environment? Artificial Christmas tree that you can use over and over and over again, or live Christmas tree that you use once and then throw away. There has, not so surprisingly, been a lot of research on the environmental impact of artificial versus real Christmas trees. According to multiple sources that will be cited at the end, artificial Christmas trees are used by the average American family for six to nine years before it is thrown away, where it will remain in a landfill indefinitely. As Christmas trees, the fake ones, are not biodegradable. Every single modern Christmas tree made of PVC and wire is still in a landfill. That Christmas tree your grandma used 60 years ago, still in a landfill somewhere. They don't go away and they don't biodegrade. If you are a tender-hearted individual and you get real sad thinking about a Christmas tree and its life ending because it came into your house, just know that its usefulness does not stop at the end of the Christmas season. A farm-grown real Christmas tree really does have the upper hand. It can be recycled and used as mulch. You can put it in your backyard and let it decompose and become a habitat for wildlife. Or it can be used to prevent erosion as part of a Christmas tree recycling program. Real trees are actually carbon neutral. They emit no more carbon dioxide by being cut down and disposed of than they absorb while growing. We can't say the same for an artificial tree. So basically, don't feel guilty about having a live tree in your home each year. Also, you can sleep better knowing that according to the National Christmas Tree Association, for every one Christmas tree that is cut down, three trees are planted each year. And that's some good math. So let's wrap it up. Here are a couple quick facts about Christmas trees. Just so when anyone asks, you've got some fun things to share. North American real Christmas trees are grown in all 50 states and Canada. Even Hawaii has Christmas tree farms. There are close to 350 million real Christmas trees currently growing on Christmas tree farms in the U.S. alone, all planted by farmers. There are over 4,000 local Christmas tree recycling programs throughout the United States. These programs take the Christmas trees, grind them up into mulch, and use them to help erosion and the environment and to create habitats for wildlife. And finally, the top Christmas tree-producing states are Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Washington. This wraps up our first ever podcast of Hello from the Van. I hope you'll join us tomorrow as we read The Fur Tree by Hans Christian Anderson and kind of, you know, finish out this theme of Christmas trees. Oh, and before I forget, we need to cite our sources. Our first main source for today was the National Christmas Tree Association. The second was the History Channel and their page, The History of the Christmas Tree. The third was New York City Christmas Trees and the History of New York. And our final reference was Wikipedia, which I use as a lead for other references. I'll see you tomorrow for day two of the 12 days of Christmas. I'm Mimi Potts, and this is Hello from the Van.