Victorian Feather Trees

Hello Readers and Happy Holidays!  I know it has been some time since I last wrote. I have been working and traveling around Europe for much of the summer so most of the work on the house had stopped.  I am however now back home and getting back to work on this beauty.  The holiday in Minnesota here was quite brown.  No snow, and mostly rainy and cold.  Hard to get into the holiday spirit, so to try to feel more of it, I put up my feather tree.  Let's talk about feather trees for a minute.  What are they and why do they call them this?

The table top Christmas tree appears to be from German traditions as much as one can tell.  The first commercial popularization could be traced back to an illustration in 1846 in the Illustrated London News.  The etching shows the young Queen Victoria and Albert gathered around a lushly decorated tree with lit candles.

Since Victoria and in that matter England, were looked upon for their impeccable taste the idea of a small table top tree became not just an old German tradition, but a popular idea for the masses.  So why is it called a feather tree?  In 19th Century Europe it was not uncommon to have laws preventing people from cutting down masses of trees to use for simply one day of decoration, therefore a desire for artificial trees was needed.  The idea soon developed in using excess goose feathers to make artificial trees.  By wrapping goose feathers in wire and dyeing them green, an artificial tree was born.

These table top trees were lit with a dizzying amount of candles and filled with ornaments ranging from simple hand made pieces, to beautiful glass items from German and Czech Republic.  Tinsel and sparkle were added to dress the tree.  At the base of the tree one often found a small fence with animals, small shrubs, rocks and moss.  This part is known as the putz.  A putz seems to be popular with the Pennsylvania Dutch  in the US, but also in German homes.  A putz was a Christmas village set below the tree.

So with a little explanation here is my feather tree:

Here the tree is lit with a few candles.  One more question you might have.  What is up with the tree stand?  Well the tree stand is actually a 1900 rotating, musical tree stand.

I made a little video of the stand playing with a few candles lit.  Gives you an idea of how magical these candle lit trees are.

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