La Vanguardia reports that the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree in Spain was brought by Russian Princess Sofia Trubetskaya, who, being married to a Spanish marquis, longed for the tradition of her childhood in Russia. In nineteenth-century Madrid, Trubetskaya was one of the most influential ladies and a trendsetter, after whom the high society of the Spanish capital repeated the custom of decorating the Christmas tree.
” As you can easily guess,” decorating the Christmas tree for Christmas and New Year’s Eve is not an indigenous Spanish tradition, writes La Vanguardia. As the publication notes, the tradition originated in Northern Europe long before Christianization: Scandinavian peoples decorated the evergreen tree in winter to celebrate the birth of god Frey.
Later, although it is difficult to determine exactly when, Christianity adopted the custom. However, it is known that the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree was widespread in some regions of 16th century Germany, so historians claim that the modern version of this tradition may have Protestant origins.
However, in Spain, and this is known for certain, the tradition was introduced by the Russian princess Sophia Trubetskaya. According to La Vanguardia, Trubetskaya was a very famous personality in nineteenth-century Madrid. “Beautiful, elegant, sophisticated and intelligent” the princess was the wife of the powerful Marquis de Alcañez José Osorio y Silva and one of the most influential ladies in high society in Madrid.
Trubetskaya became the Marquis’s wife in 1869 and quickly became a trendsetter in the Spanish capital, where the couple settled. Everyone who could afford it bought the same hats and mantillas as she did, and when a decorated fir tree appeared in the palace in Madrid, where the Bank of Spain is now headquartered, everyone rushed to repeat after Trubetskaya. The princess longed for the tradition of her childhood in Russia, where decorating a Christmas tree was already a common holiday phenomenon among the upper class.
As the publication notes, the princess made a similar furore in France, where she lived when she was married to the Duke of Morny, her first husband, who died in 1865. There she was called the most beautiful girl in Parisian society. Her biography added to the mystery of her persona: there were rumours in the Russian Empire that she was the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Nicholas I himself.
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