Fun Facts about Christmas Trees and Christmas Tree Crafts

This time of year Christmas trees are starting to pop up all over (if they haven’t already been up for a month!) so it feels like a good time to share some trivia and fun facts about Christmas trees. Share these with your kids or in the classroom.

Evergreens were used as decoration in ancient Egypt and Rome, but the tradition of using an evergreen tree in the home as a Christmas decoration (lit with candles back then) can be traced to Germany and made its way to the United States in the 1800s. According to this post all about the history of Christmas trees from History.com, Martin Luther was widely credited as being the first to put candles on trees.

The first records of Christmas trees being used in America were in the 1820s, and they were used by Germans in Pennsylvania. The use of Christmas trees on both sides of the Atlantic began to take hold when Queen Victoria was sketched with her family around a Christmas tree.

Christmas trees are grown in all 50 states, and the iconic Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has been lighting up New York City since 1931. The first lights were added to the tree two years later, and now the tree has more than 50,000 lights.

According to the National Christmas Tree Association, between 25 and 30 million real Christmas trees are sold in the United States every year. About 350,000 acres are used for growing Christmas trees in the United States, and generally three seedlings are planted for every tree that is harvested. The average growing time for a tree to become big enough to be a Christmas tree is seven years.

Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Washington are the top tree-growing states. When it comes to artificial trees, 80 percent of them are made in China.

Now that you know a little bit more about Christmas trees, how about some Christmas tree crafts? Check out these posts for some fun projects with a Christmas tree theme:

Faux stained glass Christmas tree craft
Life cycle of a Christmas tree
Make a 3D tree from a piece of paper
Christmas tree slime recipe
Roll a Christmas tree printable game
Christmas tree cutting fine motor activity
Pompom Christmas tree craft

As if Diwali weren’t colorful and fun enough, The Festival of Lights: A Lift-the-flap Diwali Celebration by Namita Moolani Mehra, illustrated by Darshika Varm, makes it even more fun to read about with flaps and things to lift and pull to see more information or details in the illustrations.

The book is a story about a family getting ready for Diwali and what happens on the different days of the five-day celebration. There’s cleaning, shopping, crafting, food preparation and getting the home altar ready for the big day.

It covers decorating the outside of the house with rangoli, diyas and lanterns, buying sweets to share with family and friends, the sights and scents of the mandir (home temple), getting dressed up in new fancy clothes, the story of Diwali and celebrations with relatives.

Flaps (there are more than 140 in all) give you vocabulary words for different foods and definitions, as well as fun things like what’s inside the shopping basket or where the cat is hanging out. They also help illuminate the story of Diwali, which is the triumph of good over evil as Lord Ram defeated the demon Ravana to save his wife, Sita.

This pretty and colorful book helps kids understand what Diwali is and how it is celebrated, regardless of whether they practice it at home. This would be a nice book to keep in a classroom (it’s rated for kids ages 3-7) or to have at home to teach kids about Diwali even if it’s not something you celebrate. Where I live there are a lot of people from India so we are probably exposed to Diwali more than some other regions of America, but it’s a nice holiday to know about wherever you live.

Combine with the book Diwali and check out some fun lantern crafts and printables for kids to round out your experience.

About the book: 24 pages, hardcover, published 2025 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail prices $22.99.

Have you read?

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