History Of Christmas Lights

The early Christmas trees were lighted with candles, then glass covers with candles inside or metal lanterns with small wicks hung on the Christmas tree branches like ornaments to brighten up the Christmas tree. The early Christmas candles were a fire hazard and buckets of water were usually kept nearby the Christmas tree just incase a fire did start up.

Electric Christmas Lights Make Christmas Safer.

With the invention of the electric Christmas lights, tree lighting became much safer and brighter. The electric Christmas Lights are one of America's unique contributions to the Christmas holidays that followed the invention of the incandescent electric light bulbs with a carbonized filament in 1879. The next development was the tungsten filament light bulbs. Early Christmas tree lights were simply night-lights strung together to make the light strings. Tungsten which produces the light gives a whiter light and for the same amount of electricity they give out almost three times as much light as the early carbon electric lights would have. The next improvement was the coiling of the tungsten which gave more filament in the same space of the bulbs thus more light. It was found that by using nitrogen-argon inside the bulbs would extend the life of the lights and make the lights more efficient. The nitron-argon filled tungsten bulbs are over twice as efficient as the ordinary tungsten bulbs which has its filament in a vacuum. When general electric commercially introduced the Holiday Lights, they caught on immediately. Edison electric soon followed with an electric Christmas lamp. New York city’s first Christmas display of lights was shown in 1882. New Yorkers used eighty, red ,white, and blue, flashing light bulb colors to light up the Christmas holiday season.

Miniature Christmas Lights History.

The miniature lights were conceived in 1895 by Ralph E. Morris, an employee of the new England telephone company. Morris’s idea for lights occurred as he was looking at the tiny bulbs in the telephone switchboards. Today American’s enjoy a variety of colorful light bulb colors and shapes. In the 1930’s the popular cartoon figure lights were used were use to decorate Christmas trees.

In the mid 1940’s and into the 1950’s the country was introduced to the American Christmas bubble lights. The Christmas bubble light bulbs had a liquid filled colored tube on top of the holiday light. When the Christmas bubble light bulbs heated up, bubbles would rise in the Christmas bubble lights bulb tube.

LED Holiday Lights History.

LED is short for “light emitting diode”. By definition the LED light bulb is a solid-state device that controls a current without heated filaments like tungsten in the light bulbs which are the most common today. LEDs are not bulbs or lamps in the true sense of the word. The LED lights are much more reliable than the tungsten bulbs. The entire unit is totally embedded in an epoxy resin. This embedding makes an LED light virtually indestructible. There are no loose or moving parts within the solid epoxy light enclosure. They are brighter and can produce an infinite number of colors. An LED light can burn 1,000 continuous hours and the commercial Cree and Luxeon LEDs will last for 50,000 hours. The biggest advantage in the amount of electrical power an LED lights use versus a tungsten light bulb. A savings of up to 90% energy consumption can be achieved.