The Radiant History of Christmas Lights

By Donna Brooks

In 1993, Timothy Gay, a young Lagrangeville, New York, father, wanted to make the holidays special for his newborn daughter, so he set out with 600 lights in hand to decorate two trees in front of his home. More than two decades later, this same father, with the help of his three children, won the Guinness World Record in 2014 for “the Most Lights on a Residential Property” with a staggering and glittering display of 601,736 lights!

The World Record holder from New York is not the first to be dazzled by a display of lights. Legend has it that Martin Luther, the German theologian and Protestant reformer, was the first to add lighted candles to a tree. But you know what a fire hazard that can be. Centuries later, Edward Hibberd Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison, strung together 80 red, white and blue hand-wired bulbs in 1882, wrapped them around a Christmas tree, and placed the tree on a revolving pedestal in front of his window for passersby to see. One newspaper reporter, awestruck by the beautiful display, wrote, “I need not tell you that the scintillating evergreen was a pretty sight—one can hardly imagine anything prettier.”

As pretty as Johnson’s electric Christmas tree lights were, they didn’t catch on with the American public initially—mainly because many homes in the U.S. did not yet have electricity. Not to mention, the lights were expensive. Because each bulb had to be hand-wired, it cost about $300 to hire an electrician to put lights on a tree. In the early 1900s, General Electric began to sell pre-wired sets for $12, but even that was more than most Americans could pay. Then in the 1920s, 15-year-old Albert Sadacca turned white novelty lights into colored bulbs, creating the first Christmas lights cheap enough and safe enough for widespread use in the home.

By the 1940s, most Americans had electricity in their homes, and people began to decorate with Christmas lights little by little. But it was not until the 1970s, when the mini light was introduced, that Americans began to decorate their homes in force, each trying to one-up the other for the best display. By the late 1990s, LED Christmas lights made their debut on many American houses. Much brighter than mini lights, LEDs are an energy-efficient way to decorate for Christmas.

Today, millions of Americans kick off the holiday season untangling lights for their trees and balancing on ladders to place Christmas lights on their houses. But I imagine that not many can hold a candle (pun intended) to the Guinness World Record holder in New York.

Donna Brooks is a freelance writer and editor and is the owner of Red Clay Editorial Services in Bluffton, South Carolina. In her free time, she is an avid runner, reader, photographer and traveler.

References

Holiday light display holding Guinness World Record becomes symbol of a dad's love, CBS This Morning

Untangling the History of Christmas Lights, Smithsonian Magazine

A Brief History of Christmas Lights, Popular Mechanics