Is the Christmas Tree Pagan? The True Story of St. Boniface

"Isn't the Christmas tree pagan?"

If you've been around church for a while, you may have heard the answer in the form of a story. A missionary named Boniface chops down a tree that pagans worshiped, then points to a little fir tree and gives it to them as a symbol of Christ. The first Christmas tree.

It's a great story. Part of it is true, and part of it isn't. Let's look at both.

Who was Boniface?

Boniface was born in England in the late 600s with the name Winfrid. He became a monk, but he couldn't shake a burden for the Germanic tribes across the sea who had never heard the gospel.

So he went. He spent most of his life as a missionary in what is now Germany, planting churches and training leaders. He did it so well that he's still called the "Apostle of the Germans."

He never stopped. As an old man, likely close to 80, he was still on mission in Frisia (in the modern Netherlands) when he and his companions were attacked and killed in AD 754.

The Thunder Oak

This part really happened. We know about it because a priest named Willibald wrote Boniface's life story within about 15 years of his death.

Around AD 723, Boniface came to a place called Geismar. There stood a massive oak tree dedicated to the thunder god. Willibald calls it the "Oak of Jupiter," using the Roman name, but the Germans called him Donar. You probably know him as Thor. To the people there, this tree was sacred.

Boniface decided to settle the question. With a crowd of pagans watching and cursing him, he took an axe to it.

According to Willibald, Boniface had barely started chopping when a powerful wind hit the tree. The whole oak came crashing down and split into four pieces.

No lightning. No angry god. Just a fallen tree and a missionary still standing.

The crowd stopped cursing and started praising God. Many of them believed. Then Boniface took the wood from that oak and used it to build a chapel dedicated to the apostle Peter.

If that sounds familiar, it should. It's Elijah on Mount Carmel all over again (1 Kings 18). One God shows up. The other one doesn't.

So where's the fir tree?

Here's a small twist. Willibald never mentions a fir tree. He doesn't mention Christmas either.

The fir tree comes from a short story called The First Christmas Tree by Henry van Dyke, an American Presbyterian pastor. It first ran in Scribner's Magazine in 1891 under the title "The Oak of Geismar," then came out as a book in 1897. Van Dyke took the real Thunder Oak story, set it on Christmas Eve, and added a beautiful ending: Boniface spots a young fir in the ruins of the oak, points to it, and calls it the tree of the Christ-child.

It's a great piece of writing, and it's worth reading. But it's fiction. Over the years it got passed around so much that people started telling it as history.

That doesn't mean you have to throw it out. It's a beautiful parable, and it's great to read at a tree lighting or with your kids. Just tell it as a story, not as history. If we pass it off as fact, the first skeptic with a search bar will find out, and then they'll stop listening to everything else we say.

We don't need the legend anyway. The true story is already amazing.

Where the Christmas tree actually comes from

The real history of the Christmas tree is a lot more recent than Boniface, and many historians trace it back to church.

In the Middle Ages, December 24 was the feast day of Adam and Eve. Churches in Germany would put on "paradise plays" about the Garden of Eden, and the main prop was an evergreen tree hung with apples: the tree in the garden. Those paradise trees eventually made their way into people's homes, and they're the most likely ancestor of the Christmas tree.

From there, the paper trail picks up:

• 1521: An account book in Sélestat, in the Alsace region, records paying a forester to guard the trees starting December 21. Most likely, people were helping themselves to trees for Christmas.
• 1605: A writer in Strasbourg describes fir trees set up in homes at Christmas, decorated with paper roses, apples, wafers, and sweets.
• 1840s: Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's German husband, made the Christmas tree a hit in England. Once people saw a picture of the royal family around their tree, everyone wanted one.
• 1800s: German immigrants brought the custom to America, and it spread from there.

You may also have heard that Martin Luther invented the lit Christmas tree after seeing stars through the branches. Same deal as the fir tree story: nice, but there's no evidence for it.

So is the tree pagan?

Notice where the earliest records come from: Christian towns in Germany and Alsace, connected to a church play on Christmas Eve. That's not a pagan ritual sneaking in the back door.

Sure, lots of cultures decorated with greenery in winter. Evergreens stay green when everything else looks dead, so of course people noticed them. But there's no evidence of a straight line from a pagan ritual to the tree in your living room.

And here's the thing: celebrating with trees and branches is in the Bible. God commanded Israel to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles by gathering branches from leafy trees and building shelters out of them (Leviticus 23:40, Nehemiah 8:15). When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, the crowd waved palm branches (John 12:13). And in Isaiah 60:13 (KJV), God says the fir, the pine, and the box tree will come "to beautify the place of my sanctuary."

God isn't nervous about trees. He made them.

And what about Jeremiah 10, where the prophet describes someone cutting down a tree and decorating it? We'll take that one on directly in the last post of this series. (Spoiler: read the whole chapter. He's talking about carving an idol.)

The whole gospel on one tree

Remember the paradise tree from the Christmas Eve plays? It wasn't just decoration. It was a sermon.

The apples hanging on it stood for the forbidden fruit, the fall of Adam and Eve. But over time, Christians started hanging something else on the same tree: small white wafers, like communion bread. Those stood for Jesus and the redemption he brought.

Think about that. The same tree held the fruit that brought death and the bread that brings life. Sin and salvation, Eden and the cross, all on one tree on Christmas Eve.

And you probably still have both on your tree today. The apples eventually gave way to shiny round ornaments, and plenty of them are still apple red. The wafers turned into cookies cut into stars and angels, and later into all kinds of ornaments. We kept the decorations and forgot the story behind them.

So the next time you hang a red ornament, remember what it used to mean: we fell. And the next time you put the star or the angel on top, remember what the whole tree is pointing to: God came down to fix it.

Why an evergreen?

Here's a simple detail that turns out to mean a lot. The paradise plays happened in late December. Apple trees were bare. Almost everything in the forest looked dead. So the tree that stood in for Eden was the one tree that still looked alive: an evergreen.

That practical choice became the heart of the whole symbol. And it turns out the Bible has a lot to say about trees that stay green.

• A life that winter can't kill. The person who trusts God "is like a tree planted by water... its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought" (Jeremiah 17:7–8, ESV). The righteous "still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green" (Psalm 92:14, ESV). See also Psalm 1:3.
• God himself. In Hosea 14:8, God describes himself this way: "I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found" (KJV). Every good thing we have grows from him.
• The curse reversed. When Adam and Eve fell, the ground started growing thorns (Genesis 3:18). But Isaiah 55:13 promises a day when "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree" (KJV). Thousands of years later, Jesus wore a crown of thorns, so the fir tree could grow again.
• Life that doesn't end. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25). An evergreen standing in the snow is about the best picture of that you'll find in nature.

Everything else on the tree adds to the story. The lights point to Jesus, the Light of the World (John 8:12). The star on top points to the star that led the wise men to him (Matthew 2:9–10). The gifts underneath point to the greatest gift ever given (John 3:16). But the evergreen is the message underneath it all: in the dead of winter, something is still alive.

The bottom line

Boniface didn't invent the Christmas tree. But he did something better. He walked up to a tree that people feared and worshiped, cut it down, and showed them it had no power. Then he built a place to worship the true God out of the wood.

That's really the whole point. A tree was never the problem. Worshiping it was.

The Christmas tree in your home isn't an idol. Nobody's bowing to it or sacrificing to it. It's an evergreen standing in the darkest, coldest part of the year, a picture of the life Jesus came to give. Winter can't kill it.

So put up the tree. Hang the lights. Gather your family around it and tell them what it means. That's not pagan. That's teaching your children the gospel.