It's always darkest before the dawn.

It's an old Pagan custom to bring a living tree indoors in the middle of the dark months of the year & decorating it with candles & trinkets. Bringing evergreen vegetation in the form of trees, boughs & branches from the outside to the inside is a magic ritual, a piece of sympathetic magic, meant to encourage the return of spring & the growing season. The Christmas tree is traditionally an evergreen tree, usually a spruce or fir, which is cut down from the forest. The tree itself symbolizes immortality & everlasting life, & the lights draped on it are reminder that during the darkest time of the year, lighter days are just around the corner.