December 20, 2022 – THEME WEEK DAY 2

This is the second day of our Christmas theme week! Today we’re talking about Christmas lights, which have only been widely used for a shockingly short time. Prior to Christmas lights (and electricity), Christmas trees were decorated with candles that were glued to the branches of the tree. The first known electrically lit Christmas tree came in 1882, when the vice president of Edison Electric proudly displayed his hand-wired tree at his home in New York City. Most newspapers of the time
ignored it as a publicity stunt. General Electric started offering pre-wired strings of lights in 1903 and from there their use grew across the U.S. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Christmas lights were used by average households, and by the ’60s, with the popularity of tract housing, it became increasingly popular to hang Christmas lights outside on houses. Learn more here.