I’ve been tracking how many days I “go outside for 23 in 2023” and I must admit it’s gotten harder as the days get shorter. The days when I don’t make it out before supper it can be hard to bundle up for an evening walk, but one thing making it more pleasant is looking at Christmas lights around town. So in celebration of Christmas lights here’s a brief look at their 140-year history.

1880 – Thomas Edison created the first string of electric lights.

1882 – Edward Johnson (friend and partner of Thomas Edison) was the first to string a Christmas tree with electric lights, using eighty red, white, and blue bulbs; the tree also rotated six times per minute. (However, electricity was not yet widely available and Christmas lights were too expensive to become popular.)

1895 – The Edison Electric Company began selling small pear shaped light bulbs for Christmas trees.

1895 – Grover Cleveland lit a Christmas tree at the White House with electric lights.

1899 – Magazines advertised rentals of stringed Christmas lights.

1901 – Electrically lit trees appeared in department stores.

1903 – The first kits of preassembled strings of light were sold (by both General Electric and the American Eveready Company), so it was no longer necessary to hire an electrician to light your tree.

1923 – Calvin Coolidge lit the National Christmas Tree with 3,000 lights.

1925 – The National Outfit Manufacturers Association (NOMA) was formed and cornered the Christmas light market until the 1960’s.

Sources

• “Here’s How Christmas Lights Came to Be” by Melissa Chan via TIME
• “Who invented electric Christmas lights?” via Library of Congress
• “Untangling the History of Christmas Lights” by Jamie Malanowski via Smithsonian Magazine
• “The Curious Evolution of Holiday Lights” by Dave Mosher via WIRED