Merchants are not the only ones who begin decorating in October. When I visited the Biltmore House and Estate in Asheville, North Carolina on October 19, Christmas trees had been decorated and set in nearly every public room of the 250 room mansion built in 1895. That’s right. 1895. Traditions around the evergreen tree and branches date back centuries to the Egyptians but became popular during the reign of England’s Queen Victoria who married Prince Albert from Germany. In the 1500s, Germany began bringing evergreen trees into homes at Christmas (“O Tannenbaum”) and in the 1800s, the decorated tree tradition made its way across the ocean to America. Here’s a…