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"Latvia was the home of the first Christmas tree..."

Hardly. . . The Catholic Encyclopedia says: "Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church . . . the first evidence of the feast is from Egypt."

Around 3000 B.C. the king of Egypt was Osiris. When he died, his wife, Isis, told how the god king lived on as a spirit being. She claimed that an evergreen tree sprang from a dead tree stump, overnight, and she told how each year on the anniversary of his birth (December 25!), Osiris would visit the evergreen tree which symbolized eternal life, and he would leave gifts. Here are the origins of the Christmas tree and the date that eventually became known as Christmas 3000 years later! 1510 was over 4,000 years after the Osiris tradition was established.

Jeremiah 10
2 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.

3 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.

4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

Around 3000 B.C. the king of Egypt was Osiris. When he died, his wife, Isis, told how the god king lived on as a spirit being. She claimed that an evergreen tree sprang from a dead tree stump, overnight, and she told how each year on the anniversary of his birth (December 25!), Osiris would visit the evergreen tree which symbolized eternal life, and he would leave gifts.

Give me a frickin break. All these years, I and millions of others have been lead to believe that the Christmas tree was part of the celebration of Christ's birth. If that is an accepted truth, then how in the h*ll could an "evergreen" 3000 years before that incident be a part of that celebration?

If using the act of placing gifts by/under the evergreen elevates it to the status of a Christmas tree, then Osiris is a Johnny Come Lately because I'm sure that thousands of years before that, some Neanderthal threw a bone with meat on it under a tree as a "gift" for his mate and by your definition, voila, the Christmas tree and gift giving tradition was started.