THE popular custom of displaying Christmas trees in our homes, offices, shops and streets is a curious mixture of modern living combined with ancient pagan practices.

So far as I know, our pagan ancestors did not make use of Christmas trees - for them, the season was known as Yuletide anyway - but they did decorate their homes with evergreens during the dark winter months in the belief that they represented eternal life. And, of course, a Christmas tree is an evergreen - even if it is artificial! So was the Christmas tree the produce of Christianity, or has it more ancient origins?

Even if England was slow to adopt the custom of having a Christmas tree, it was used overseas but the precise beginnings of the practice are not easy to determine. Some Assyrian sculptures in the British Museum, dating to the ninth century, show likenesses of what might be termed The Tree of Life and these are very similar to our own Christmas tree.

During the 15th century and much closer to home, the Germans made use of an evergreen tree at Christmas time and this featured in some nativity plays for the period, being variously known as the Tree of Life or Paradise Tree.

When these plays became an excuse for bawdiness, orgies and drunkenness, they were banned by the authorities, but the religious people of the time decided to continue staging the plays, but restricted them to the confines of their own homes where they were staged among friends and family members.

In this way, the notion of a living tree being taken indoors as part of a seasonal celebration was accepted and there is no doubt it continued to be a symbol of eternal life, even among Christians.

It is said that Martin Luther, leader of the German Reformation in the 16th century, placed a conifer outside his home and decorated it with small candles. There is also record of modern-style Christmas trees being used in Strasbourg during 1605 - people would take their evergreen trees indoors and decorate them with fruit, sweets and paper decorations. By the end of that century, the Christmas tree formed a vital part of every German family's celebrations.

There seems to have been no similar custom in England (although some householders did make a semi-circle of evergreens such as laurel and ivy, and this was taken into the house and lit by candles at Christmas) but, around 1820, some German friends of Queen Caroline, the wife of King George IV of England, arranged a Christmas party for children and provided three Christmas trees with candles. The trees were actually brought into England by Princess Lieven and by 1840 the practice had become popular among Germans and Swiss nationals living in England.

It was Prince Albert, the consort to Queen Victoria, who made the practice popular among ordinary people throughout the country. He did not introduce the notion of Christmas trees as some records imply, but was responsible for popularising the practice.

In recalling his happy childhood memories of Christmas around the tree within the home, he decided to introduce the idea to the royal household, probably in 1841 and so the idea became fashionable. Not only was an evergreen tree introduced into the house, it was also decorated with a variety of objects ranging from toys to baubles by way of candles and sweets and there also developed the idea that it should remain in the house for the 12 days of Christmas.

The ideal tree was an immature Norway spruce, probably due to its attractive conical shape, its capacity for surviving the Christmas period indoors, its dark green evergreen colour and its distinctive scent. Because importation of these trees was forbidden due to possible diseases, there soon developed the idea of planting and harvesting crops of Norway spruce especially for the Christmas market.

This seems to have been initiated by the Manchester Corporation. In 1908, they afforested 2,000 acres around Thirlmere in the Lake District and as the trees matured, some of the younger ones were removed to allow the others to grow - and these found a ready sale as Christmas trees. Lots of others were given to children's homes, old age pensioners and hospitals and today more owners of reservoirs have followed suit.

The largest supplier of Christmas trees is probably the Forestry Commission, but HM The Queen is another major grower through her forests in Windsor Great Park; each year, she supplies two trees to St Paul's Cathedral.

Perhaps the best known Christmas tree is that which stands in Trafalgar Square each Christmas. This is a gift from the people of Oslo and was the brain child of Peter Prag, manager of the Norwegian National Trust Office in London.

Seeing the magnificent snow-covered spruces of his country, he thought the people of England would appreciate such a tree - and he remembered how, during the war when King Haaken of Norway was exiled in London, a Norway spruce was smuggled across the North Sea for him every Christmas. Mr Prag's idea was accepted and the first 65 foot high tree was erected in 1947 - but the importation rules had to be waived to allow it into England, and it had to be burned immediately after its festive use.

Updated: 10:49 Thursday, December 13, 2001