What better year for a Christmas in July party has there ever been than THIS year?!
I was asked to be the speaker at a REALLY cool Christmas in July ZOOM party this
month. It’s SO cool, that I just have to tell you about it!
Last December, I did an author event at Next Chapter Books in St. Paul, MN, and had a lovely conversation with the co-owner/manager. This is her idea, and I love it! She is having unfired pottery sent to each participant’s home with the glaze colors needed to paint a Christmas themed symbol on it during the party. She asked if I would do my Christmas Spirit workshop thing speaking and singing about the history of a carol that has to do with such a symbol, while they – from home – in front of their Zoom screens – are painting! How much fun would that be?!
I chose O Christmas Tree. I mean, what Christmas-loving host wouldn’t like to serve holiday fare, in December, to family and friends from a plate with a self-painted Christmas tree on it?! What a conversation starter!
As I started delving deeper into the history of the origins of this carol, my jaw DROPPED. Although this carol is centuries old, there is an aspect of its history that speaks directly to a very divisive issue with which we, in the United States, are grappling TODAY!
I just had to share some of it with you. Here are the lyrics to the first verse:
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
O Tree of green unchanging
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
O Tree of green unchanging
Your boughs so green in summer time,
Do brave the snow of wintertime
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
O tree of green unchanging
The next three verses move toward the theme of God’s love for us.
Now, you can’t really talk about the history of this carol, without touching on the origin of Christmas trees. How did they become such a beloved symbol of Christmas?
It was the Vikings who started the tradition of chopping down fir trees and bringing them into their homes. See, they noticed that evergreen trees seemed to thrive during the bleakest of times. During the dark, cold, long, hard Scandanavian winters – we’re talking the 8th through 11th centuries, they hoped that the spirit of the tree would help fortify them. They were superstitious. They thought the trees were magic and that they could drew strength from them inside their homes.
Fast forward –
In the 16th Century, German Christians started decorating trees in their homes, and it was largely due to Martin Luther’s influence that the Christmas Tree became such an important holiday symbol for Germany and Austria. He explained that the color of the evergreen tree didn’t fade, just as God’s love for us doesn’t fade, no matter the trial or circumstance. He also explained that the candles he put on the tree represented the light and hope that Christ brought to the earth with his birth and resurrection.
Many believe that Martin Luther was the first to add lighted candles to a Christmas tree. Legend has it that, as he was walking home one winter evening, composing a sermon in his head, his breath was suddenly taken away as he beheld the beauty of stars twinkling amid evergreen trees. In an effort to recapture this scene, he put up a tree in his home and wired the branches with candles, which he then lit.”
Fast forward again –
Prince Albert – of Germany – married Queen Victoria and brought his beloved German traditions with him to her Palace – which, of course, was in London, England, in 1840. These royals were very popular and had a great deal of influence on their subjects. In 1841, Prince Albert arranged for a fir tree to be brought from his homeland and decorated.
Now, the printing press was advancing by leaps and bounds during this period, and there was this new type of media called the “Magazine!” An illustration of the royal family gathered about the Christmas tree at Windsor Castle appeared in the Illustrated London News and created a sensation throughout the English-speaking world! Everyone knew about Queen Victoria’s Christmas tree.
By 1845, the popularity of the fir tree, as a symbol of Christmas, had made its way into homes all over Canada and the United states.
It’s not surprising that the carol, O Christmas Tree, originated in Germany, and in the German language is, “O Tannenbaum.” No one actually knows who wrote the melody. It’s an ancient German folk tune.
The lyrics were not all written at the same time or by the same person. The first stanza is from the folk domain – handed down – no one knows from whom. But verses two and three were written by the German poet Ernst Gebhard Anschütz who lived from 1800 – 1861.
So that’s all well and good, right? I’d known bits and pieces of that for decades! But while I was looking a little deeper into this I learned that the melody reached the United States by 1861, and in 1939 it became the melody for the official state song, “Maryland, My Maryland.”
The words to the state song are the nine-stanzas of a poem written by a native of Maryland; James Ryder Randall in 1861. Randall was teaching in Louisiana in the early days of the Civil War. Now Maryland was pretty well split down the middle when it came to sympathizing with the Union or the Confederacy, so the state – as a whole – remained neutral. But Randall was outraged at the news of Union troops being marched through Baltimore. The poem articulated his Confederate sympathies and, set to the traditional tune of “O, Tannenbaum,” achieved wide popularity in Maryland and throughout the South.
Here are the verses to the official Maryland state song as they still stand today:
VERSE 1
The despot’s heel is on thy shore,
Maryland, My Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!
VERSE 2
Hark to an exiled son’s appeal,
Maryland, My Maryland!
My mother State! to thee I kneel,
Maryland, My Maryland!
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland! My Maryland!
VERSE 3
Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Remember Carroll’s sacred trust,
Remember Howard’s warlike thrust,
And all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland! My Maryland!
VERSE 4
Come! ’tis the red dawn of the day,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Come with thy panoplied array,
Maryland, My Maryland!
With Ringgold’s spirit for the fray,
With Watson’s blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Verse 5
Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Come to thine own anointed throng,
Stalking with Liberty along,
And chaunt thy dauntless slogan song,
Maryland! My Maryland!
VERSE 6
Dear Mother! burst the tyrant’s chain,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Virginia should not call in vain,
Maryland, My Maryland!
She meets her sisters on the plain-
“Sic semper!” ’tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back again,
Maryland!
Arise in majesty again,
Maryland! My Maryland!
VERSE 7
I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Maryland, My Maryland!
But lo! there surges forth a shriek,
From hill to hill, from creek to creek-
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
Maryland! My Maryland!
VERSE 8
Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Better the fire upon thee roll, Better the blade, the shot, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the soul,
Maryland! My Maryland!
VERSE 9
I hear the distant thunder-hum,
Maryland, My Maryland!
The Old Line’s bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland, My Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! she burns! she’ll come! she’ll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!
This state song of one of the United States of America – calls for Marylanders to fight against the U.S. and was used, as a battle hymn across the Confederacy during the Civil War. As you see, it includes lyrics that refer to President Abraham Lincoln as “the tyrant”, “the despot”, and “the Vandal”, and to the Union as “Northern scum”, as well as referring to the phrase “Sic semper tyrannis.”
Sic semper tyrannis is a Latin phrase meaning “thus always to tyrants”. It suggests that bad outcomes should or eventually will befall tyrants. And of course – in this context, the tyrant was Lincoln. Or at least, that’s how the Confederacy viewed him.
After the Civil War, the animosity against President Lincoln continued , and Marylander John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln on April 14, 1865, crying “sic semper tyrannis” as he did so in Washington’s Ford Theater.
So why would such an anti-American, hate-inciting song still represent one of the “United” States of America? Many think it shouldn’t. Attempts have been made, here and there, to replace it as Maryland’s state song, but so far, all attempts have failed. In 2018, they came close when a bill was passed that “reclassified” “Maryland, My Maryland,” as the state’s “historical” song, rather than its “official” one. The bill says the song’s words that “advocate the overthrow of the United States government and disparage Northerners and President Abraham Lincoln, are controversial, inappropriate, and do not represent the ideals and values of Marylanders today.” Sen. Cheryl Kagan introduced the bill and while it initially sought to repeal and replace the song, Kagan said the watered-down version is a “compromise.” In a tweet, Kagan called it “a modest effort to address our outdated & offensive State Song,” adding that it helps “address our racist past.”
Sen. Barbara Robinson, who backed the bill, said “it’s not changing history. History doesn’t change.” And she said that demoting the song would be especially meaningful for black Marylanders.
I can’t help but liken this situation to our whole discussion around what to do with our monuments, you know? It sounds like a good idea to think of ways to “demote” them as “historical statues.” What might that demoting look like? I would suggest something short of destroying, because, as Sen. Robinson said, “It’s not changing history. History doesn’t change.”
Did you ever imagine that studying a Christmas carol could lead to this?
Well, now you Nowell!