The New Year's Pine Tree

In many Christian countries they celebrate the feast of Christmas by hanging little gifts on a small pine tree. The legend says that Father Christmas, or Saint Nicholas, helped brides who had no means of procuring a dowry, or threw little gifts down the chimney of the roof that fell into the stockings they hung on the chimney of the room to dry. With time, instead of hanging stockings, parents hung the little gifts on a small pine tree. It became fashionable in many countries to have a small pine tree in the house at the end of the year. We know that pine trees were always a symbol of long life, because they do not let their leaves, which are like needles, fall, and they always stay green. Only sick pines have brown leaves.

In general the peoples of the Middle East worshipped the sun when the night was the longest, which corresponds to the last days of the month of December. More than 2,500 years ago, in China, a man named Zungfong found, by measuring the shadows, that the shortest day of the year comes in these days, and since then the Chinese celebrate these days of 21, 22 or 23 December as the festival of Dongzhi. A very similar festival exists in countries like Iran, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan, called 'the night of Yalda'. Since Darius, the famous Persian king who lived more than 2,500 years ago, the people of these countries celebrate the arrival of winter on 21 December. In another part of the world, in North America, the Indians — the natives of that land, so called because Christopher Columbus believed he was in India when he saw these people who did not resemble Europeans — celebrated on this same day the arrival of winter just like the Chinese and the Persians, a celebration called 'Soyal'.

In a tomb found by Professor María Dolores of the University of Málaga, at Aswan in Egypt, the sun of 21 December fell exactly on the statue of the governor who lived nearly 4,000 years ago. This means that in Egypt too they marked this day of 21 December as an important day that was the entrance to winter. In all these celebrations, the most important decoration was a tree, generally a pine, giving rise to the feast of Christmas almost 700 years after the birth of Jesus (Yeshu). This tree is the most important proof of the tradition of inaugurating the day of 21 December. In the United States some Jews decorate the end-of-year tree with a Magen David and with lights instead of little toys, calling it a 'Hanukkah tree', knowing that Hanukkah often falls on the same days.

A very ancient Turkish tradition is what we call 'Narduğan' or 'Nardoğan'. The famous Sumerologist Muazzez İlmiye Çığ tells us that according to the faith the Turks of Central Asia held before taking the Muslim religion, they believed that right in the centre of the world there was a great pine tree that was considered the tree of life. The symbol of the tree of life is seen in many Turkish carpets, kilims and embroideries. The war between day and night ends on 21 or 22 December, and the victory belongs to the day, which begins to lengthen. The celebration is held under a pine tree where they ate and danced. This celebration is called the feast of 'Nardoğan'. Nar means Sun and Doğan means Birth. They hung little things on the pine tree to thank God who is making the days longer. This type of pine apparently grows only in Central Asia, and this tradition is said to have passed to the Christians as the Christmas tree, through the Huns, who were a Turkish tribe that penetrated as far as Italy with the famous Attila in the year 451. As the days lengthen, we wish you all health, love and good livelihood.