This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories.

Up next, our next story comes to us from a man who's simply known as The History Guy.

His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages over on YouTube.

The History Guy is also heard here on Our American Stories.

Let's take a listen to The History Guy as he recalls the forgotten history of Christmas trees.

Traditions involving evergreen plants in midwinter are as ancient as civilization.

The winter solstice, the point where one of the Earth's poles has its maximum tilt away from the sun,

occurs in December in the northern hemisphere, very close to Christmas, usually December 20th or 21st.

The solstice represents the longest night and the shortest day of the year, and days thereafter will grow longer until the summer solstice.

Many ancient religions saw the significance. To them, winter came because the sun god had grown ill or weak, and the solstice was a cause for celebration as it represented the day when the sun god began to recover.

Evergreen plants were used because they represented the triumph of life over death.

In ancient Egypt, on the solstice, people decorated their homes with green palm prongs in a celebration of Ra, the god of the sun.

Ancient Roman celebrated Saturnalia, a raucous festival in honor of Saturn, the god of wealth and agriculture in mid-December.

And the festival of gift-giving and libation included decorating the home with evergreen boughs.

Celtic druids in ancient Britain decorated evergreen trees at the onset of winter

to ensure a fruitful coming year.

Germanic peoples venerated sacred trees and oaks

and associated the evergreen tree with the god Balder who was associated with the sun.

In ancient Germanic and Scandinavian traditions, trees were seen as a protection from the wild hunt,

a chaotic time when

...