by Mechelle McCarrell ICS.LPN

Created on: December 17, 2008

Lights that sparkle and brighten up a room, colors of red, green and blue on a Christmas tree so beautiful and new, a Merry Christmas sign in a window and a Christmas wreath thats lit up on a front door are what comes to mind when the Christmas season is upon us. The Christmas tree light story and how it's history started is a very unique one indeed.

Christmas lights were actually first invented back in the late 17th century, families would cut down a tree they chose for Christmas and once in their house, they would attatch their smaller candles to the tree branches with wax or pins, and light them only on the evening of December 24th, after dinner to enjoy and sometimes they would leave the candles lit all night to celebrate that Christmas had came, Soon after electricity was invented, people started putting up their Christmas trees sooner, because there was no longer a risk for fire due to lit candles on their Christmas trees.

Ah yes electricity! thanks to a wonderful man named Edward Johnson a close associate and friend to Mr. Thomas Edison, the famous inventorof electricity, families all over the world could now put the magic glow of all kinds of colors of lights that sparkled on their Christmas tree for as long as they wanted, In 1882 Edward Johnson hand wired 80 lights of red, white and blue bulbs and wound them around a rotating evergreen tree, and due to the popularity of this new and beautiful invention, all of this excitement soon struck the interest of another very famous man by the name of President Grover Cleveland, so in 1895 the President put up a lighted tree at the white house and the general public began to notice, so had begun the great Christmas tradition.

As the 1900s came to a close, Mr. Edison began bringing good things to light and offering hand blown lights made by his general electric company and homeowners would higher what was called "wiremen" to come to their house and wire the lights to their Christmas tree for them, The Christmas light became so popular that soon people were hosting Christmas tree parties and businesses were buying the lights and putting trees up in their stores to advertise, and it wasn't until 1903 that a company calledAmerican EverReady came up with actual little colored light bulbs that you could screw into sockets on a long wire and plug it into an electrical socket, and from then on began newer, better and safer ways, that improved on the way we use and put lights on our Christmas trees today.

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