What Makes Red and Green the Traditional Christmas Colors?

As the final Thanksgiving leftovers are finished and we enter December, the vibrant red-and-green hues of the Christmas season start to emerge. These two colors flood shopping malls and homes worldwide, decorating everything from festive lights to ugly sweaters on display in stores. The Christmas season is tightly bound to this colorful pairing—but what’s the reason behind it?

Search online for explanations behind the classic red and green Christmas colors, and one name stands out: Coca-Cola.

The story goes that in the 1930s, Coca-Cola’s holiday advertisements featured a Santa dressed in red, next to a green fir tree. These iconic images helped cement the link between red, green, and Christmas in the collective imagination.

These tales should be taken with a grain of salt. Red and green were associated with Christmas long before Coca-Cola turned into Santa’s go-to drink. For example, an 1896 newspaper states, “The decoration of the hall was as unique and effective as anything ever attempted. The Christmas colors, red and green, prevailed.”

Though there isn’t a definitive agreement on how this color combination originated, there are several fascinating theories that might just hold the key.

Paradise Trees

One of the more obscure theories suggests that red and green might trace back to “paradise plays,” which were traditional Christmas Eve performances depicting Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. A tree was central to the story, and surviving stage instructions from a 12th-century play note that “divers trees be therein” (and given the winter season, any suitable tree was likely an evergreen). Additionally, a fruit—perhaps a red apple or a pomegranate—was hung from it.

It’s widely believed that as paradise plays faded from tradition, the tree itself survived—and eventually evolved into the modern Christmas tree. Some hold that the combination of the red fruit and the green tree helped connect the two colors in people’s minds with the Christmas holiday.

Paradise plays weren’t the only biblical performances staged during the medieval period. One of the most renowned is the Second Shepherds’ (or Shepherd’s; the name is debated) Play, which blends a comedic farce about sheep-stealing with the nativity story. Among the gifts given to the infant Christ in the play is a bunch of cherries. (Not holly, but cherries.) Some historians contend that this suggests a connection between red, green, and Christmas that dates back hundreds of years.

Holly

Speaking of holly: It’s another widely considered reason for why red and green became synonymous with Christmas. Religious studies professor Bruce David Forbes suggests that medieval Europeans were searching for ways to cope with the harshness of winter. So, why not celebrate?

The party would showcase evergreens, symbolizing life amidst the stillness of winter, alongside other plants that not only remain green but even produce fruit during the cold months, such as holly and mistletoe. Mistletoe berries are, in fact, white. These vibrant reds and greens during winter likely made them the natural and obvious colors associated with Christmas.

Rood Screens

In 2011, Spike Bucklow from Cambridge University observed, 'We recognize holly as a quintessential Christmas plant. The red and green color scheme is ingrained in our consciousness because of the Victorians, yet they themselves were influenced by the medieval artwork still visible on 15th and 16th-century rood screens.'

Rood screens played a vital role in Western churches until roughly the Reformation. They were designed to divide the nave, where the congregation gathered, from the chancel, which housed the altar and clergy. These screens were intricately carved, often featuring depictions of saints, donors, and other figures, along with vibrant colors.

According to Bucklow, the common color pairings found in rood screens were red/green and blue/gold, with one color representing something fluid like blue or green, and the other something more intense like red or gold. Bucklow theorizes that these colors symbolized a barrier separating the more earthly congregation from the sacred altar and sanctuary.

By the time of the Reformation, rood screens in England had largely fallen out of favor. In the years that followed, they were often neglected or damaged as they deteriorated. However, as Bucklow notes, the Victorians took on the task of restoring these screens and observed the recurring red and green color pairing. It’s possible that they repurposed this color scheme to signify the transition between one year and the next.

Bucklow even references a 13th-century collection of Welsh stories to back his claim that red and green are symbolic of boundaries. In a 2011 Cambridge news release, he mentioned: 'For instance, the red-green color combination is present in the Mabinogion, a 13th-century compilation of Welsh tales, likely based on a much older oral tradition from pre-Christian Celts. In one story, the hero encounters a tree that is half red and half green, marking a boundary.'

While there’s no definitive explanation for why we associate red and green with Christmas, it’s clear that this connection isn’t new. As Bucklow points out, the link between these festive colors and the holiday might actually conceal a 'profound and long-forgotten other history.'

This article was initially published in 2019 and has been revised for 2024.