The Story of Holiday Lighting

Posted by Johny Dean on September 27th, 2013

Warm, colorful and bright, Christmas lights always manage to attract the attention of every visitor during the joyful December. But it was not only for the purpose of aesthetics why holiday lighting was invented at first. Back then, December was not such the pleasant and bright month we know today.

Nowadays, we cannot even picture Christmas without the typical Christmas lights, the colorful decorations and, of course, the Christmas tree. Whether it is in public spaces, on the streets, in the stores or in our own homes, these beautiful ornaments are there to let us now that Christmas is on the way. There is something about that warm light that makes us become better persons with the others around us and enjoy the cold season even before the first snow has fallen. But when did all these start and which is the reason why we have kept the same traditions for so many centuries?

The story of holiday lighting dates back to the 17th century, when people started lighting candles as a decoration for the Christmas tree. The significance of this gesture does not necessarily have a religious background. The truth is that December is one of the coldest and darkest months of the year. No wonder that before electricity, people were using fire and candles to light up their houses during the dark winter. And since the Christmas tree was a very important tradition for everyone, they decided to enhance the aspect of the house by adding lights to their most valuable Christmas decoration. But the problem is that the only way you could do that was by attaching the candles with was or pins to the end of the branches. This was obviously a dangerous situation and many fires were starting during that period of time. This is when electrical lights appeared.

Of course, the first use of electrical Christmas lights must be connected to Thomas Edison. It was during the winter of 1880, one year after the incandescent bulb was invented, when the proud American inventor decided to hang a string of electrical light outside his laboratory. Two years later, a friend of Edison, whose name was Edward Johnson, was the first one to use electrical lights to decorate his Christmas tree. This interesting discovery of that time made the news, but this invention was quite expensive for the poor people back then. Only the rich ones were able to afford this Christmas wonder. As electricity became a more important aspect in the every-day life of people, electrical lights started being more and more common in households during Christmas.

Don’t forget to get your holiday lighting this year from Lightingzilla, the company that came up as the product of Baylighting and Seldens Company’s commitment to high-quality products in the Lighting business. If your order of Christmas lights is worth at least $149.00 you will benefit from the advantage of having free shipment to your address within the 48 continental states of the United States.