E European History

» RigaRooster - Legend information Riga as Home of First Christmas Tree

It is our educated opinion here in Riga, that when searching for the history of the Christmas tree, one must go very deep into the past. The story about the first Christmas tree was a combination of many different facts, legends and customs all starting in the Baltic countries and what is now Northern Germany.

There is a lot of information available that has not been published in detail as yet. We have an active project to read the original documents chronicles of the House of Blackheads written in Old German language in the year 1510. These documents are in the Latvian archives and have been read once before and we have read that summary.

It is clear that the single men of the guild in the House of Blackheads in Riga and a sister organization in Tallinn held an extensive Christmas/winter celebration starting near what is now
Christmas day and extending into the New Year.

This celebration included a combination of Pagan and Christian rituals and a tree decorated indoors using paper flowers (we believe roses) and dried fruits and such.

In the NEW Year, this tree was removed from the building and taken into the square and burned with a great celebration.

This style of party occurred again during what is now the period 40 days prior to Easter Sunday or what would be Mardi Gras and ending on what today would be Ash Wednesday.

The details of how the men and their friends including ladies was very
detailed including the types of food, drink and dance. The documents listed times, types of dances, how much could be drunk and so on.

This information is in addition to the documentation in the UK book Christmas Archives International held by Countess Maria Hubert von Staufer.

From what we have learned the references to Martin Luther and a tree using candles is some two decades later and occurred in Northern Germany not in Latvia. It is even possible that Martin Luther was never in Latvia.

It is our educated opinion, that when searching for the history of the
Christmas tree, one must go very deep into the past. The story about the first Christmas tree was a combination of many different facts, legends and customs all starting in the Baltic countries and what is now Northern Germany.

The Riga Tree is NOT the Martin Luther Tree by some 20 years earlier and appears to be the first documented use of a tree in a Christmas/winter celebration.

Our website will continue to evolve and eventually take on the role of creating and selling a tourism product.

Our company has received an EU Trademark 004808242 on the name "Home of the First Christmas Tree" and we will use this trademark name for our tourism product: "Celebrate the Medieval Christmas Experience"

We have applied for a second figurative trademark 004839304 in the shape of an Evergreen tree and the words "First Christmas Tree". We plan to use this trademark for our line of products we are developing to sell.

We realize that we can not legally Trademark a city of a place so we will develop our tourism product around the legend and the experience of the Christmas / winter celebration that occurred in those early years in Riga and perhaps several other cities.

Happy to discuss with you at any time either in person or here in Riga, what I know and our plans for this effort.

Best regards, Mike Johnson, General Manager,
Patricia Tourist Office, Riga Latvia

... your friend in the Baltics!

-- posted by RigaRooster