Parsippany NJ
2017

The classic Ceramic Christmas tree is quintessential vintage Christmas.

If you have never really inspected one, the ceramic Christmas tree is a large hollow tree that is on a base which holds a light socket. A light bulb is placed in the socket on the inside of the tree on the base. When the tree is plugged in and the light comes on, it illuminates the "Christmas lights" on the outside of the tree. These "Christmas lights" are hollowed out beads made of colored glass.

According to Ebay's Guide to Buying a Ceramic Christmas Tree, most of the vintage trees have been manufactured in the 1970s or 1980s when ceramics were at an all time high. According to the same article, these trees vary in size...from 17 to 24 inches tall.

I also love that the article goes on point out that there is a difference between copyright and production date. If a tree has an embossed date on the underside of the base, it may not necessarily be the date it was produced...it could be the date the mold was copyrighted. The article states that legit vintage trees are usually individually numbered.


https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/christmas-trees

Christmas Trees might well have started out as 'Paradise Trees' (branches or wooden frames decorated with apples). These were used in medieval German Mystery or Miracle Plays that were acted out in front of Churches during Advent and on Christmas Eve. In early church calendars of saints, 24th December was Adam and Eve's day. The Paradise Tree represented the Garden of Eden. It was often paraded around the town before the play started, as a way of advertising the play. The plays told Bible stories to people who could not read.

Christmas Trees as they came to be now started around the late 1400s into the 1500s. In what's now Germany (was the Holy Roman Empire then), the Paradise Tree had more decorations on it (sometimes communion wafers, cherries and later pastry decorations of stars, bells, angels, etc. were added) and it even got a new nickname the 'Christbaum' or 'Christ Tree'.