Thank you for your patience while we retrieve your images.
Choose a tree that is a little too big for the room


https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/christmas-trees

Christmas Trees might well have started out as 'Paradise Trees' (branches or wooden frames decorated with apples). These were used in medieval German Mystery or Miracle Plays that were acted out in front of Churches during Advent and on Christmas Eve. In early church calendars of saints, 24th December was Adam and Eve's day. The Paradise Tree represented the Garden of Eden. It was often paraded around the town before the play started, as a way of advertising the play. The plays told Bible stories to people who could not read.

Christmas Trees as they came to be now started around the late 1400s into the 1500s. In what's now Germany (was the Holy Roman Empire then), the Paradise Tree had more decorations on it (sometimes communion wafers, cherries and later pastry decorations of stars, bells, angels, etc. were added) and it even got a new nickname the 'Christbaum' or 'Christ Tree'.


Thomas Edison, the inventor of the first successful practical light bulb, created the very first strand of electric lights. During the Christmas season of 1880, these strands were strung around the outside of his Menlo Park Laboratory. Railroad passengers traveling by the laboratory got their first look at an electrical light display. But it would take almost forty years for electric Christmas lights to become the tradition that we all know and love.

Before electric Christmas lights, families would use candles to light up their Christmas trees. This practice was often dangerous and led to many home fires. Edward H. Johnson put the very first string of electric Christmas tree lights together in 1882. Johnson, Edison’s friend and partner in the Edison’s Illumination Company, hand-wired 80 red, white and blue light bulbs and wound them around his Christmas tree. Not only was the tree illuminated with electricity, it also revolved.

https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/technology/item/who-invented-electric-christmas-lights/

However, the world was not quite ready for electrical illumination. There was a great mistrust of electricity and it would take many more years for society to decorate its Christmas trees and homes with electric lights. Some credit President Grover Cleveland with spurring the acceptance of indoor electric Christmas lights. In 1895, President Cleveland requested that the White House family Christmas tree be illuminated by hundreds of multi-colored electric light bulbs.

On Christmas Eve 1923, President Calvin Coolidge began the country’s celebration of Christmas by lighting the National Christmas Tree with 3,000 electric lights on the Ellipse located south of the White House.

While Thomas Edison and Edward H. Johnson may have been the first to create electric strands of light in 1880/1882, it was Albert Sadacca who saw a future in selling electric Christmas lights. The Sadacca family owned a novelty lighting company and in 1917 Albert, a teenager at the time, suggested that its store offer brightly colored strands of Christmas lights to the public. By the 1920’s Albert and his brothers organized the National Outfit Manufacturers Association (NOMA), a trade association. NOMA soon became NOMA Electric Co., with its members cornering the Christmas light market until the 1960’s.

Today we expect to see the holiday season become aglow with electric strands of light. Think of the variety and range of Christmas lights available in today’s market. We can be grateful to Thomas Edison, Edward H. Johnson and Albert Sadacca for illuminating our holiday season.
2019 JAM089 FIND THE TRUE MEANING2019 JAM087 SEASONS GREETINGS2017 JAM1491 TINIEST TREE2017 JAM1491 TINIEST TREE2017 JAM1490 SPARKLES EVERYWHERE2017 JAM1490 SPARKLES EVERYWHERE2017 JAM1429 OUR LITTLE TREE2017 FAA7962 CHRISTMAS CLASSIC2017 FAA7513 NOW THAT'S A TREE2017 FAA7499 CHRISTMAS WHITE2017 FAA7499 CHRISTMAS IN WHITE2017 FAA7369 CHRISTMAS IN THE SKY2016 JAM1489 AND IT BEGINS2016 JAM1489 AND IT BEGINS2016 FAA6280 Curliques2016 FAA6280 Curliques2016 FAA4662 FESTOON2016 FAA4256 Silver & Sugar2016 FAA4222 More Sparkle2016 FAA4220 Urban Firs

Categories & Keywords
Category:Lifestyle and Recreation
Subcategory:Holidays
Subcategory Detail:Christmas
Keywords:bulb, card, christmas, decorate, decorations, green, greetings, happy, holiday, lights, merry, ornament, print, quote, red, reindeer, santa, season, sleigh, snow, star, tree