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Christmas lights and December 22

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Everyone who knows me knows that December 22 is my least favorite day of the year… it’s the day with the shortest amount of daylight. The sun sort of bottoms out for three days around December 22 before beginning its climb higher into the sky (by one degree) on or about December 25.

As a kid growing up, I remember going outside in mid-December to watch my dad string Christmas lights along the front of the house. These were the big colored bulbs the size of your thumb. We probably had one of the more ornate displays in the neighborhood at the time. It included a series of life-size cut outs of Santa, Mrs. Claus and the elves (shellacked to wood and mounted to metal bases), all illuminated with flood lights.

I never really thought about it, but those two things have something in common.

Christmas lights came about as people decorated their Christmas trees with candles. It was also a way to add light to the house during the shortest days of the year and survive the darkness. Obviously, the idea of placing a flaming, smoking candle, dripping hot wax all over dried out tree branches in your home was not the smartest idea. People would literally light the candles and sit close by to watch the tree with buckets of sand and water on hand to put out the inevitable fires.

One hundred and thirty years ago this year, on December 22, Edward Hibberd Johnson changed everything and ushered in an era of tacky lights and over the top Christmas displays. Johnson, who was vice president of Edison Electric Light Company, created the first display of electric lights in his home for Christmas. Thomas Edison created the first practical electric lights three years before so as a publicity stunt Johnson added 80 electric lights to his Christmas tree. Not content to simply put lights on a tree and flip the switch, though, Johnson mounted a rather pathetic looking tree on an electric turntable that spun the tree around. As it turned, the lights blinked on and off, alternating colors from white to blue to red.

In 1900, General Electric, who bought the patent to Edison’s lights, published the first advertisement for Christmas lights. They were so expensive; strings of lights could be bought or rented. Mass production quickly changed everything and by 1915 companies sold lighted figurines and ornaments for trees. As soon as electric lights were sealed to be used outside, electric Christmas lights moved outside the house. And so began the era of attempting to outdo our neighbors with outsized displays and power-sucking lights. All in an attempt chase away the darkness and bring light to our homes.

And now I think I need to go to the store. There’s this one spot on the side of the house that isn’t lit up…Dad would be so proud.

For more information on Christmas lighting, read the six part series on Christmas lights at http://www.jimonlight.com/

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