hristmas Trees of Lilliland

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

As the head of Lilliland, Baron Von Lodge has some unique laws that are not always common in other countries. For example, people cannot have guns or shoot at anything, and fighting in public or dueling is forbidden.

When the Christmas season comes around, it is one of the most joyous and anticipated times of the year in Lilliland. Homes, inside and out, are decorated with typical greens and ornamental items found in every country. The one exception is that there are no cut Christmas trees allowed. If a family wants a Christmas tree inside the home, it must be a live, potted tree, carefully watered everyday. When the Christmas celebration is ended, the tree is planted outside in the yard, or in the forest, to continue to grow into a tall member of the Alpine Forest.

Many of the homes in Lilliland have a large evergreen tree in the front yard which they decorate each Christmas holiday season. It is virtually a custom that when a family first builds and moves into their new home, friends of the family give them an evergreen tree for the front yard to decorate each year as their Christmas tree.

In many countries, where Christmas is celebrated with a cut tree, the young tree is sadly discarded after the Christmas holiday onto a pile of other, no longer needed, dead and dying trees. This is not the case in Lilliland because after the Christmas celebration is ended, nothing has died. All the trees are alive and beautiful as ever. This is the way the Baron likes it to be and so do all of the citizens of Lilliland.

Sometimes the Baron places a specially decorated tree in a large container on a barge and floats it out on Castle Lake. Candles are lit all around the barge, which have different colored glass shields. As it slowly passes by, the people of the village come and gather on the banks of the lake to see the beautiful and wonderful sight.

The Baron is very concerned that the trees, following Christmas, are planted again in the Alpine Forest to continue growing.

The beautiful trees on Alpine Mountain are one of the natural joys and treasures for all the generations of Lilliland to love.