by Chris Tattersall

Created on: December 17, 2008

Christmas tree lights are today a common sight throughout the Christian world, and often signify the beginning of festivities when they are turned. However, Christmas tree lights have their roots in ancient Europe, specifically in Germany.

During the 7th Century a monk from England traveled through Europe in order to spread the word of Christianity. One account states that in order to explain the holy trinity, the monk used a fir tree due to its triangular shape, with the three points of the fir tree representing the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The tradition of the fir tree as a religious symbol travelled slowly, but by the 12th Century, small decorated fir trees were being hung upside down from ceilings to celebrate the Christian festival of Christmas. The first widely accepted report of a lit Christmas tree was in the 16th century by the German monk, Martin Luther (November 10th 1483 to February 18th 1546), who decorated a fir tree with candles in an attempt to replicate the night sky for children.

Christmas tree lights developed little until the advent of electricity in the late 19th Century. In New York during December 1882 Edward Johnson, an associate of the father of electricity Thomas Edison, lit the first Christmas tree by electricity using 80 lights, coloured red white and blue. By 1900 Christmas tree lights were available for purchase in shops, although they were quite expensive and therefore unobtainable by most people.

Due to the high cost of electric bulbs, candles remained a popular choice and were therefore in common use until around 1930.

1917 saw Albert Sadacca, a 17 year old at the time develop the concept of safe and affordable Christmas tree lights. Using his families business which made artificially lit imitation bird cages, Albert diversified the business into Christmas tree lights, and within two years the business (trading as NOMA Electric company) became a huge success and remained the biggest Christmas tree light manufacturer until the mid 1960's.

Since the early 20th century, Christmas tree lights have kept pace with new technological developments. Recent years have seen such developments as electronics with the ability to produce lighting effects in sequence, such as in time with music, the use of fibre optics and the development of low voltage Light Emitting Diodes (LED's) rather than the more expensive an hotter filament bulbs.

Future developments are considered to be primarily in the control of Christmas tree light shows and the quantity of lights on show due to their value.

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