Best Places to Buy Real Christmas Trees in St. Louis, Missouri

There were quite a few years growing up I would spend a few days around Christmas with my grandparents. For a few years early on they lived out in the country and my grandfather would trek through the woods and cut down a Christmas tree. A couple pieces of wood nailed together for a stand and the tree would take its rightful place next to the fireplace. My grandmother popped corn and dug through the attic to get out the old ornaments and the slightly battered-looking angel to perch on top of the tree. 

As they grew older, my grandfather could no longer go out and chop down a tree, so they began to use artificial ones. One Christmas they had a white tree with a revolving light sitting next to it. The light had a multicolored plastic plate attached to it. As the plate revolved, the tree would slowly change color. First green, then yellow, then red, and finally blue. I remember watching it, mesmerized, as I fell asleep on the couch.

Even before the Christians adopted it as the triangular shaped symbol of the trinity and Christ's promise of eternal life, the evergreen was considered "the tree of life." In Europe, a tree was brought inside during the harsh cold winter as a symbol that life can survive even the worst conditions. In some areas the tree was decorated with flowers and then set on fire as a symbolic gesture.

The Christmas tree market in the United States began in 1851 when a farmer in New York hauled two sleds full of evergreens into New York City and sold them all. Christmas tree farms became popular in the 1930's during the depression. Unable to sell their trees throughout the year, nurserymen began to harvest them as Christmas trees. Cultivated trees were preferable to the ones that grew in the wild because they were more symmetrical and easier to get into the house.