The History of Tinsel on Christmas Trees
For those who are decorating their green artificial Christmas trees, there are several different items that you can use to decorate this with. Tinsel is one of those items that is considered traditional. However, most people do not realize just how rich of a story is behind tinsel. And who knows, this may encourage you to use this on your green artificial Christmas trees this year!
Tinsel was initially developed in Nuremberg, Germany in 1878 when slim strips of silver foil were sold as ‘Icicles’. In 1880 ‘angel hair, made from spun glass was offered. The first ‘tinsel’ garlands were sold in the 1890s from silver-plated copper line. But when plastic/man-made tinsel was created, it became very popular as it was much more economical than metal tinsel and also lighter to go on the tree!
How to Effortlessly Hang Tinsel on Your Tree
There are also folk tales about how tinsel was created – by The Christmas Spider!
All the versions of the story include a poor family who can’t manage to decorate a Tree for Christmas (in some variations, the tree progressed from a pine cone in their house, in others, the family has purchased a tree for the house). When the children rest on Christmas Eve, a spider covers the tree in cobwebs. Then on Christmas morning, the cobwebs are magically turned into silver and gold strands which decorate the tree!
Some variations of the story say that it’s the light of the sun that transformed the cobwebs into silver and gold, but other versions say it’s St Nicholas / Santa Claus / Father Christmas / das Christkind which made the magic happen.
The stories behind the use of tinsel on green artificial Christmas trees make this even more fun to decorate a tree in, as imagine telling everyone these stories while using tinsel on the tree.