Evergreens such as Holly and Pine have traditionally been brought into the home over the festive season to be used as a form of decoration and symbolism. One such example of this is the Advent Wreath; a garland of evergreen foliage containing four, sometimes five candles to be lit each Sunday before Christmas helping to mark the passage of the four weeks of advent.

The above scene ‘bringing home the holly’ taken from Enid Blyton’s The Christmas Book shows a father and his children carrying holly boughs to be used to adorn their doorway and nursery. Another more iconic form of evergreen adornment in the home is the Christmas tree. A relatively modern custom in Britain, famously initiated when Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert brought a tree from Germany and displayed it in Windsor Castle. The scene was depicted as a drawing in the 1848 Illustrated London News.