Photo by Toni Cuenca on Unsplash
As the last Thanksgiving leftover is consumed and the calendar flips to December, the unmistakable red-and-green flood of the Christmas season es into view. The two colors fill malls and living rooms around the world, and adorn nearly every decoration, strand of lights, and ugly sweater on store shelves. The Christmas season is inextricably connected to this color bination—but why?
随着感恩節大餐的最後一點剩菜被掃盡，月曆翻到了12月，聖誕季滿目的紅紅綠綠開始映入眼簾。世界各地的商場和客廳都布滿了這兩種顔色，幾乎每一處裝飾、彩燈甚至連商店貨架上的醜毛衣都是紅配綠。為什麼聖誕季和這種配色密不可分呢?
While there may be no definitive consensus on how this color scheme came to be, there are a few interesting candidates for the official answer.
盡管對于紅配綠是如何成為聖誕專屬配色并無公論，但還是有幾種有趣的說法可供參考。
CANDIDATE 1: PARADISE TREES
起源一：傳統劇目《天堂》中的樹
Photo by Tj Holowaychuk on Unsplash
Probably the most obscure of the hypotheses suggests red and green may go back to Paradise Plays, which were a traditional play performed on Christmas Eve about the Fall of Man and Adam and Eve’s banishment from the Garden of Eden. The story can’t be recreated without a tree, and since it was winter, any good-looking tree was probably an evergreen. You also need a fruit to hang from it—say, a red apple or a pomegranate.
這很可能是各種假說中最晦澀的一種，這種說法認為，聖誕節和紅配綠的關聯可能起源于聖誕前夜上演的傳統戲劇《天堂》，該劇講述的是人類的堕落以及亞當夏娃被逐出伊甸園的故事。這出戲離不開樹，而冬天裡隻有常青樹還好看點。樹上還需要懸挂水果——紅蘋果或者紅石榴。
It’s widely thought that as the Paradise Play died out, the tree remained—and turned into the modern Christmas tree. The red of the fruit and the green of the tree linked the two colors in popular imagination with the Christmas season.
人們普遍認為，在戲劇《天堂》淡出舞台後，戲中的樹卻保留了下來，并演變成現代的聖誕樹。水果的紅色和樹的綠色成為大衆心目中聖誕季的代表顔色。
CANDIDATE 2: HOLLY
起源二：冬青樹
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Religious Studies professor Bruce David Forbes theorizes that medieval Europeans were looking for something to do during the bleakness of winter. So, why not party?
宗教學教授布魯斯·戴維·福布斯的理論是，中世紀的歐洲人尋找可以在凄冷的冬天做的事。于是他們想，何不開個派對呢?
And that party “would feature evergreens, as signs of life when everything else seems to have died, plus other plants that not only stay green but even bear fruit in the middle of winter, like holly or mistletoe.” (Although mistletoe berries are actually white.) These bright reds and greens in the middle of winter may have made them natural candidates for the colors of Christmas.
這個派對“将會有常青樹，在萬物蕭瑟時常青樹象征着生命，還有一些常青樹能在深冬中結果，比如冬青樹或槲寄生”。(不過槲寄生的果實是白色的。)深冬之中的這抹鮮紅色和綠色很自然地成為了聖誕節的代表顔色。
CANDIDATE 3: ROOD SCREENS
起源三：聖壇屏
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In 2011, Cambridge University’s Spike Bucklow mented, “We ... recognize holly as being a quintessentially Christmas plant. That red and green is in our psyche because of the Victorians, but it was in their psyche because of the medieval paint that we can still see on 15th- and 16th-century rood screens.”
2011年，劍橋大學的斯派克·巴克羅評論道：“我們……意識到冬青樹是典型的聖誕植物，而紅配綠是因為維多利亞時代的人而深入人心的。他們對這種配色的情結源于至今仍然可以在15世紀和16世紀的聖壇屏上看到的中世紀塗色。”
quintessentially[kwɪntɪˈsenʃəli]: adv. 典型地;标準地
psyche[ˈsaɪki]: n. 靈魂;心智
Rood screens were an integral part of Western churches up until around the time of the Reformation. Their purpose was to separate the nave (where the congregation sits) from the chancel (around the altar, where the clergy would be) and were intricately designed with local saints, donors, or other figures.
到宗教改革時期為止，聖壇屏一直是西方教堂中必不可少的一部分。聖壇屏的用途是把教堂的中殿(教衆坐的地方)和高壇(聖壇周圍，神職人員站的地方)分開，屏上畫着當地聖人、捐贈人或其他人物的精美畫像。
integral[ˈɪntɪɡrəl]: adj. 構成整體所必須的，不可缺少的
nave[neɪv]: n. (教堂的)中殿
chancel[ˈtʃænsl]: n. 高壇
According to Bucklow, popular binations of colors were red/green and blue/gold, with one pair of colors being watery (blue or green) and one fiery (gold or red). Bucklow suggests that these colors were part of a representative barrier—separating the more earthly parishioners from the more spiritual altar and sanctuary.
據巴克羅稱，聖壇屏常見的顔色組合是紅/綠色和藍/金色，一組顔色是水的顔色(藍色或綠色)，一組顔色是火的顔色(金色或紅色)。巴克羅指出，這些顔色代表着一種屏障，将世俗的教區居民與精神的聖壇和聖所分隔開來。
By the time of the Reformation in England, rood screens had largely fallen out of use. In the years afterward, they would be vandalized or ignored as they decayed. Centuries later, according to Bucklow, the Victorians began restoring these rood screens and noticed the red/green color bination. It’s possible that they adapted this red and green color scheme for a different boundary: when one year ended and the next began.
在英格蘭發生宗教改革之前，大多數聖壇屏已經被棄之不用。此後多年，人們或是對其肆意破壞，或是任其腐壞。據巴克羅稱，幾百年後，維多利亞時代的人開始修複這些聖壇屏，并注意到了上面的紅/綠配色。他們可能将這種配色代表的界限換成了另一種：舊歲和新年的界限。
英文來源：Mental Floss