There is great truth to the fact that Christmas trees are more pagan in origin than Christian. Pagans used evergreens liberally during their December celebrations of the Winter Solstice. The evergreen is highly symbolic for many reasons: it is unchanging and it survives the dead of winter. To many ancient pagan societies which depended upon favorable seasons to grow food the evergreen represented hope, eternal life, fertility and good luck.
Split amongst the many recorded factions of Christianity are groups that either embrace pagan symbolism and adopt them with added Christian themes — or they shun them altogether claiming things like Christmas trees, mistletoe and Yule logs are an abomination to God. The biggest whopper told is that the Bible itself forbids the use of Christmas trees. In Jeremiah, it reads:
For the customs of the people are vain; for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with an axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. — Jeremiah 10:3-4
There’s just one problem.
Jeremiah predates even the pagan use of evergreens and he was centuries ahead of the first Christmas tree. How can the Bible ban something that didn’t even exist at the time?
Like so many things the scripture in this case is taken out of context. Jeremiah is speaking in context of idols and there is no way anyone can claim that a Christmas tree is an idol.