Christmas is nearly here. Our Chief Happy Karen Lambert has been given us a weekly countdown for the last eight weeks…. Santa Claus is coming… seven weeks to go. Santa Claus is coming…. six weeks to go.. and so on. Christmas deadline day is nearly here.
At Happy Creative one of the first signs of Christmas is a small Christmas tree placed on top of my Mac by Debbie, our Office Manager. It’s not just on my computer. Like a festive virus, it infects computers all-round the office, a sudden sprout of small Christmas trees. We’ve always been busy as a company during the last three months of the year and finding time to decorate the office and start thinking about Christmas, rather than deadlines, can be tricky.
However as I work on my infected computer with a Christmas tree twinkling in my eye, it’s got me thinking what an important element the Christmas tree has become for Christmas. It’s a center piece in our homes, we ask Santa to place our presents under it and, as a creative designer it’s an amazing inspiration for multiple interpretations of how the Christmas tree can be represented. When trying to understand anything, you need to know what its purpose is. What’s it trying to communicate? To understand the Christmas tree you first need to look back.
A long, long, time ago in a place not that far away legend has it, that the first recognisable traditions of decorating the Christmas tree were started in Germany by Martin Luther. Young Mr Luther on a brisk walk around the snow covered hills near his village, stopped and admired the beauty of the fir trees. I imagined he thought that one of them would look nice in his house and went about chopping a tree that was probably a little bit too big for his front room. After cutting down a smaller tree that his wife thought would fit better, he promptly started to decorate it with candles.
Over the years, more people liked what Martin Luther had done with a Fir tree and some candles and they too walked around the countryside and started to fell fir trees. Developing the idea, people started to add ribbons, tinsel and small chocolate coins. The tradition of the Christmas tree that we would all recognise had begun.
Today, the fir tree is still a popular choice for our front rooms over Christmas. Candles less so, due to them being quite a fire hazard. However the concept of the Christmas tree has grown and grown. Here are some examples that I have found that are unusual, beautiful and meet the brief in a creative way.
James Chantler is a creative thinker and Creative Director at Happy Creative, a full service marketing and creative agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
