The custom of decorating trees at Christmas time can be traced to 16th Century, Germany. In the Cathedral of Strasbourg in 1539, the church record mentions the  a Christmas tree, but there are indications that the practice of erecting trees in front of homes had begun even earlier in the area.

According to an article located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree#Roots, a Bremen Guild Chronicle of 1570 reports "a small fir was decorated with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers, and erected in the guild-house, for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas day."

Martin Luther decorated a small tree as a symbol to the stars shining at night. 

 Another early reference is from the town of Basel, where the tailor apprentices carried a tree decorated with apples and cheese around the town in 1597.

By the 18th Century, the practice had entered German homes in the towns of the Upper Rhineland, and it remained confined to the urban areas for a relatively long time before spreading out into the rural areas.  In the early 19th century, the custom became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far as Russia.  Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg introduced the Christmas tree to Vienna in 1816. The custom spread across Austria and into France by 1840 where it was  introduced by the Duchess of Orleans.

In Britain, Queen Victoria as a child was familiar with the custom for at age thirteen she wrote in her journal on Christmas Eve of 1832, "After dinner. . . we then went into the drawing-room near the dining-room. . . . There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees. . . ." In 1847, her husband, Prince Albert, wrote: "I must now seek in the children an echo of what Ernest [his brother] and I were in the old time, of what we felt and thought; and their delight in the Christmas-trees is not less than ours used to be". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree#Roots)

According to the Wikipedia article, several cities in the United States lay claim to this country's first Christmas tree. Windsor Locks, Connecticut claims it became the home of the first tree in New England when an imprisoned Hessian soldier put up a Christmas tree in 1777. Another claim comes from Easton, Pennsylvania where German settlers purportedly erected a Christmas tree in 1816, making that town the site of the first Christmas tree in America. Yet another claim comes from Lancaster, Pennsylvania when the diary of a Matthew Zahm recorded the use of this country’s first Christmas tree in 1821. Other accounts credit Charles Follen, a German immigrant to Boston, for introducing to America the custom of decorating a Christmas tree.

August Imgard, a German immigrant living in Wooster, Ohio, is credited with being the first to popularize the practice in America. In 1847, Imgard cut a blue spruce tree, and had the Wooster village tinsmith construct a star, which he placed atop the tree in his house.  He decorated the tree with paper ornaments and candy canes. The National Confectioners' Association officially recognizes Imgard as the first ever to put candy canes on a Christmas tree; the canes were all-white, with no red stripes.  Imgard is buried in the Wooster Cemetery, and every year, a large pine tree above his grave is lit with Christmas lights.

Click here to enjoy a few Christmas tree photos from family and friends