It is tradition in Finland to have a christmas tree. Usually the tree is a spruce. It can be logged from own forest or bought from a retailer. Some prefer an artificial christmas tree. Some decorate the tree already on first advent, but most popular tradition is to decorate the tree on 21st of December (Tuomaan päivä) and have it until 6th of January (Loppiainen) or 13th of January (Nuutin päivä).
The first christmas trees were seen in Finland in the early 1800s, but they became popular among the citizen in the early 1900s. Quite big role in this was played by the teachers of primary school. Academy that trained Finnish school teachers was founded in Jyväskylä in 1863. They started to celebrate the end of the autumn semester by bringing in a spruce to the ball room and decorating it with self made decoration. The graduated teachers spread the custom to celebrate the end of autumn semester with a christmas tree together with plays by the students and songs throughout Finland.
For decades the trees were decorated with some candles, straw decoration, candies, chains with flags and gingerbreads. Nowadays quite many trees have led-lights, colorful balls and all kinds of glitter. Many Finns also have some christmas tree decoration, that have been inherited or have some other sentimental value.
My family has an artificial christmas tree, a Canadian pine tree says its storage box, and I bought it as my first Christmas tree in the late 1990s. Along the years it has gotten decoration from United States, Hungary, Germany and of cource from Finland. Some of the decoration mean a lot to me and my family, others will be renewed in 5 or 10 years intervals.
We will set up our tree on 21st of December, so why to blog about the tree today?
Today Finland’s most welknown christmas tree was logged and transported to its place in the front of the cathedral of Turku. This year’s tree comes from Nousiainen, which is located about 20 km north from Turku. The tree is 22 meters tall and weighs about 4 tons. It is about 65 years old and will decorate Turku until the 13th of January 2017. After this tree is usually cut to pieces and given back to the donator. One year tree was used to renew the mast of local sailing ship, Sigyn.
The tree will have 717 led lights and they will be litten on the 26th of November. This tradition dates back over 100 years. First time the christmas tree in front of the Turku Cathedral had electrical lighting was in 1900. Electrical lighting became a tradition as early as in the 1930s. Every year people can offer spruce from their property to be the christmas tree in Turku and similar donations are also happening in other cities in Finland. In Turku the tree has to be 20-25 meters tall, equally formed, have nice green color and be bushy.
From here you find pics and video of this year’s tree and its journey to Turku.
I wish you all a nice 1st advent and December.
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