Old World Christmas Ornaments & Great Holiday Stuff

Those of us who celebrate Christmas with a tree in our homes usually choose to light one way or another. But do you ever stop to wonder how it started lighting our trees? The first lights on Christmas trees were candles that were attached to tree branches with either melted wax or pins that hold them in place. As you can imagine, many trees went up in smoke because of this practice. One might think that at that time, many families would have kept buckets of water nearby to extinguish the impending fire. In the homes of the rich, it was often times the work of an officer to watch the tree during the evening and be ready to extinguish a fire if necessary. Because of this imminent danger, most trees have been decorated on December 24 and promptly removed after Christmas. This must have been a lot of work for such a brief viewing of the tree! In 1882, Thomas Edison’s technology has been used to hand over 80 red, white and blue lights on the first Christmas tree lit electronics. It took some years for this idea take hold. When President Grover Cleveland put up a Christmas tree lit electronically to the White House in 1895, finally, the idea began to gain some publicity. The general public has realized that there was a better way to light their Christmas trees. In the late 1800s, General Electric Company began manufacturing and selling hand-blown bulbs that were ready to wire in a string to be placed on a Christmas tree. Since the average homeowner has not been well educated on how electricity worked at that time, a new industry emerged to “wiremen” who were hired to wire the bulbs in the light and the tree. In the early 1900s, some stores began setting up large illuminated trees to attract customers. And to attract customers did! Everyone wanted a tree house as the stores were able to put on screen. In the early 1900s, the cost of such a tree is more than $ 300. This price includes a generator and service the Wireman’s. By today’s standards, this cost would amount to over $ 2,000. In 1903, the American Eveready company developed and marketed the first light of Christmas, which had screw in bulbs and a plug into the wall, as many houses had been “wired” for electricity by this time. Then in 1908, entrepreneur Ralph Morris had the idea of taking the lights from an old switchboard, wiring them on a Christmas tree, and use a battery as a power source. But the individual who made the biggest difference in Christmas tree lights, and that was affordable to the general public, was Albert Sadacca. The family of Albert built in imitation of birds in a cage wicker lit by electricity. At the age of 15 years, Albert had the idea of electric Christmas lights. His parents thought he sounded like a good idea, and the family gave it a go. The first year it only sold 100 sets of lights. The following year, Albert decided to color bulbs red, green and other colors. This idea has really taken off. Albert Sadacca became the head of an electric company noma, a company several million dollars. Directed by Albert and his two brothers, Henry and Leon, the trio formed the largest Christmas lighting company in the world before 1965. Today, yet another revolution in Christmas lighting is underway. The new offering in the Christmas lights are LED lights that use less electricity than incandescent bulbs and burn less frequently. With the trend toward energy conservation and “going green”, LED lights are quickly gaining popularity. Even if they are more expensive than traditional caskets incandescent light, a way to change all your Christmas lights is to buy a new set of LED lights per year until everything is completely changed. The technology of lighting Christmas trees will continue to change over time. History shows us that we have made many improvements in recent centuries. Only time will tell what is in store for the Christmas lights in years to come!

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