Why green and red are the definitive Christmas colors?
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Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world.
Green represents the tree that would provide the wood for the cross that he was crucified on and red represents his blood that was shed to save us all from our sins.
Green is because life, plants and especially holly has been a staple of winter festival throughout history. Red because Coca-Cola is very very good at marketing, and ran a campaign where Santa wore red. Now, christmas is half-red.
Green comes from the norther European traditions of decorating with evergreens for the midwinter festival, presumably because of the association with the rebirth of spring. Red probably because of colour contrast. But it’s noteworthy that when Christmas trees became popular in the U.K. and then the USA gold was the usual colour of ornaments.
So, like all things it evolves over time.
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Most Christmas traditions are based in Pagan roots. Yule logs, holly, mistle toe, feasts, winter solstice… nothing to do with jc, and everything to do with super old school traditions.,
It comes from the Celtic people who used to decorate with red and green holly – holly was supposed to keep things beautiful during the winter and signify the coming spring/new life. The first recorded representation of using the color scheme was in a 14th century church where the partitions were painted red and green around Christmas time.
But then, the guy who Coca-Cola hired to drew Santa took the red and ran with it. He’s actually the reason Santa is depicted the way he is (jolly, big man with red suit and white hair/beard). Before that, he was not as big and his attire varied in color.
Edit to add: some people are really mad that I was incorrect about Coca Cola pioneering the red color lol I went on a deep dive about Santa because I have nothing better to do today and the red color of the suit was cemented in this order:
-sometimes being portrayed in red or red accents in historic images -> Twas the Night Before Christmas poem in 1823 -> Nast took that depiction and solidified it after a few different iterations (including a miniature Santa) -> Coca Cola hired Sondblum and marketed the ever living shit out of this image and it stuck with pop culture.
Santa is an amalgamation of three different European mythological figures/saints and stemmed from winter feast traditions and originally was robed in white (with red accents), blue, green or tan, with red becoming more popular in 17-1800s.
If you want more facts and nuance, I suggest looking further than Wikipedia and doing a deep dive yourself. His ancient self from pre-Chrsitian eras is actually a neat and interesting figure.
It has pagan origins from the Celtics druids who chose the holy plant or holly which has the crimson red berry against the green backdrop, which symbolizes man coming from nature. The berry represents the blood of man from nature, the green leaves. Christmas was celebrated as a celestial event by peoples across the globe and time.
Green for plants, red for animals = life.
Also, uh, pagans. Green for goddess, red for god.
When we think of traditional colors certain times of the year, those are actually the colors of nature at that time. In the wintertime, the trees you do see are evergreens. The only colors you generally see are bright red berries from an assortment of trees and shrubs. In the spring, the pale flowers that first come up are the colors we associate with Easter and spring clothing. In the fall, the fields and trees and squashes, including pumpkins, are the colors we think about with thanksgiving.
Edit- to add, many will point out the historical roots of Christmas trees, but those were still generally based on what was available in nature.
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