by Danelle Cloutier

Light up your holidays!

Journalist Danelle Cloutier brings to light the history of these bright holiday decorations. Holiday lights were once a source of fear among the public, but have since developed as an essential holiday decoration. In the 1880s, a few prominent Americans experimented with stringing Christmas trees with the lights and from there the trend took off.

The long strings of colourful little bulbs that hang on trees and houses today were once a source of fear among the public. In the 19th century when electricity was a new marvel, many were afraid. Some parents didn’t let their children near lights and even U.S. President Benjamin Harrison was so afraid of using electricity that he made White House staff turn off all of the lights in fear of being electrocuted. Thomas Edison was the genius who created the scary glowing bulbs, including the first strand of electric lights. During the holiday season in 1880, Edison’s strands of lights were strung outside of his laboratory for railroad passengers to see. This is credited as being the first electric light display used during the holidays.

In the 17th century, prior to Edison’s invention, people put candles in their trees and would sit nearby with buckets of sand and water in case the tree caught fire (and it often did). People pinned candles down with a needle and melted wax to but that often wasn’t enough to keep the candles in place.

In 1882, Edward H. Johnson, Edison’s friend and partner in the Edison’s Illumination Company, was the first to string lights around his Christmas tree. The string had eighty red, white and blue bulbs and the tree even rotated about six times a minute.

Then in 1895, U.S. President Grover Cleveland requested that multi-coloured electric light bulbs illuminate the Christmas tree in the White House. Some credit him for causing wide acceptance of using electric Christmas lights indoors. Until the early 1900s, stringed lights were only for the wealthy; one string of lights cost hundreds of dollars in today’s money because the wiring of electric lights was expensive and required a wireman. The price of stringed lights went down and became more popular when General Electric bought the rights to Edison’s bulbs.

Early advertisements for lights referred to them as “Edison miniature lamps” and even suggested renting them for the season. At the time, the stringed lights held eight pre-wired porcelain sockets and eight coloured bulbs.

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For the next two decades, many companies sold lights and in 1925, they formed the National Outfit Manufacturers Association (NOMA), which later became NOMA Electric Co. NOMA led the Christmas light market until foreign imports drove it out of business in the 1960s.

Today, many people around the world light up their holidays with elaborate light displays. Just last week an Australian lawyer set a world record for the largest image ever made with LED lights. He strung up 1.2 million multi-coloured Christmas lights in the shape of three giant gifts in Canberra, Australia.

Have a bright holiday!