Not stupid at all. "The modern custom can be traced to 16th century Germany, but apart from that, there was neither an identifiable inventor nor a single town to have been the sole trigger for the tradition, which was a popular merge from much older traditions; in the Cathedral of Strasbourg in 1539, the church record mentions the erection of a Christmas tree, in that period, the guilds started erecting Christmas trees in front of their houses. Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann (Marburg professor of European ethnology) found a Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 which reports how a small fir was decorated with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers, and erected in the guild-house, for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas day. Martin Luther is said to have decorated a small tree in house to symbolize the way the stars shined at night. Another early reference is from Basel, where the tailor apprentices carried around town a tree decorated with apples and cheese in 1597. During the 17th century, the custom entered family homes..." Source and more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree#Origin

In The UK, Norway has gifted our tree for Trafalgar Square for many years. The first tree was brought over in 1947 as a token of Norwegian appreciation of British friendship during the Second World War. When Norway was invaded by German forces in 1940, King Haakon VII escaped to Britain and a Norwegian exile government was set up in London. To most Norwegians, London came to represent the spirit of freedom during those difficult years. From London, the latest war news was broadcast in Norwegian, along with a message and information network which became vital to the resistance movement and which gave the people in Norway inspiration and hope of liberation. The tree, which is usually 70ft (20-25m)in height and anything between 50 and 100 years old, is then shipped free-of-charge across the North Sea. A special crew is contracted to haul it from the docks to Trafalgar Square and the space which is allocated every year to the Norwegian Christmas tree. It takes several hours to put the tree up. Scaffolding is erected, the tree is winched up, and the base of its trunk pushed four feet into the ground and secured with a dozen or more wooden wedges. There is no other form of support. The tree stands there again as it did in the forest. A truly incredible fete of teamwork, and a sight to behold.

1) Because of the Nativity of Jesus Christ. Most trees which are used as Christmas trees will not be able to be used to make crosses. ;-) 2) because housecats love them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fKYa_BIJ5I 3) because Kiefer Sutherland loves them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMygUGR5eQE 4) more seriously: "Pagans, long misunderstood to be “devil worshippers,” celebrate belief in a higher power through its manifestation in the natural world (Ellerbe, 1995). What is most telling about Paganism in relationship to Christian privilege, more specifically, about the emergence of Pagan practices and symbols in secular spaces, is the history of imposition of Christian practices and symbols virtually on top of Pagan ones (Ellerbe, 1995). Such imposition served an important historical purpose in Christian proselytization, inserting new Christian practices and symbols alongside longstanding Pagan ones, eventually engulfing and extinguishing the Pagan ones and supplanting the Christian ones in their place (Ellerbe, 1995). So, for example, while the Christmas tree, the holly wreath, and Easter eggs are pagan symbols, and the practice of gift giving at Christmas is borrowed from the Pagan celebration of Yule, the prevalence of these traditions in the public sphere today is linked to the secularization of Christianity, not Paganism" Source and further information: http://pirate.shu.edu/~schlosle/My%20Research/Secularization%20of%20Christianity.doc 5) "Jeremiah 10:1-5 in the Bible says the following (KJV): Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. This is interpreted by some fundamentalist Christians as referring to a Christmas tree, and that therefore the Bible would explicitly forbid the practice. However, the more common interpretation is that the passage refers to idol worship, and it is the practice of making an object out of wood, silver, and gold, and then worshiping that idol, which is pagan. Others feel that since "Christmas Trees" are not biblically ordained, they should not be used. Such individuals and Christian denominations are unlikely to celebrate Christmas at all, for the same reason, such as the United Church of God. Martin Collins from Bibletools.com believes that that the origin of the Christmas tree is tied to the ancient myth of Gilgamesh and Horus, which they associate with character Nimrod in the Bible. Interestingly, that association places the origins of the Christmas tree in to a celebration Nimrod as the "Son of Heaven." By associating this symbol with Jesus, many Christians are replacing that pagan symbology with a Christian one by celebrating the Birth of Jesus on December 25th instead of the Birthday of Nimrod. Most churches however use Christmas trees as decoration at Christmas time. Some churches use the same stripped Christmas tree as a Christian cross at Easter. See the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood. Both Ezekiel 47:12 and the Book of Revelation 22:2 use trees as a symbol of new fruitful life, comparative to the Tree of life denied Adam in Genesis 3:22-23. Paul makes the link between Adam and Christ clear in Romans chapter 5: Adam is a type of the one who was to come. (v. 14) In the same way the Christmas tree can be seen as mirroring the tree of life, a symbol or type of the Crucifix which brings redemption. Syncretising traditions in Northern Spain, the Bilbao airport displays the foreign tree and the Basque Olentzero.In some Catholic countries, the tree is seen as a recent Protestant or American influence detracting from the Mediterranean traditions of the Christmas crib. However in many Catholic homes, both types of decoration coexist." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_trees

not sure who started it but it wasnt me

Blame the Germans, they place them outdoors!