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Christmas lights (also known as fairy lights, festive lights or string lights) are lights often used for decoration in celebration of Christmas, often on display throughout the Christmas season including Advent and Christmastide. The custom goes back to when Christmas trees were decorated with candles, which symbolized Christ being the light of the world. The Christmas trees were brought by Christians into their homes in early modern Germany.
Christmas trees displayed publicly and illuminated with electric lights became popular in the early 20th century. By the mid-20th century, it became customary to display strings of electric lights along streets and on buildings; Christmas decorations detached from the Christmas tree itself. In the United States, Canada and Europe, it became popular to outline private homes with such Christmas lights in tract housing starting in the 1960s. By the late 20th century, the custom had also been adopted in other nations, including outside the Western world, notably in Japan and Hong Kong. It has since spread throughout Christendom.
In many countries, Christmas lights, as well as other Christmas decorations, are traditionally erected on or around the Advent Sunday of Advent. In the Western Christian world, the two traditional days when Christmas lights are removed are Twelfth Night and Candlemas, the latter of which ends the Epiphanytide in some denominations. Taking down Christmas decorations before Twelfth Night, as well as leaving the decorations up beyond Candlemas is historically considered to be inauspicious.
The illuminated Christmas tree became established in the UK during Queen Victoria reign, and through emigration spread to North America and Australia. In her journal for Christmas Eve 1832, the 13-year-old princess wrote, "After dinner.. we then went into the drawing-room near the dining-room. There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees". The girlhood of Queen Victoria: a selection from Her Majesty's diaries. p. 61. Longmans, Green & co., 1912. University of Wisconsin. Until the availability of inexpensive electrical power in the early 20th century, miniature candles were commonly (and in some cultures still are) used.
In 1895, US President Grover Cleveland sponsored the first electrically lit Christmas tree in the White House. It featured over a hundred multicolored lights. The first commercially produced Christmas tree lamps were manufactured in strings of multiples of eight sockets by the General Electric Co. of Harrison, New Jersey. Each socket accepted a miniature two-candela carbon-filament lamp.
The first recorded uses of Christmas lights on outdoor trees occurred in San Diego in 1904; Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1909; and New York City in 1912. McAdenville, North Carolina, claims to have been the first in 1956. The Library of Congress credits the town for inventing "the tradition of decorating evergreen trees with Christmas lights dates back to 1956 when the McAdenville Men's Club conceived of the idea of decorating a few trees around the McAdenville Community Center." However, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has had "lights" since 1931, but did not have real electric lights until 1956. Furthermore, Philadelphia's Christmas Light Show and Disney's Christmas Tree also began in 1956. National Christmas Tree Association: Famous Trees In Canada, archival photos taken in 1956 around suburban Toronto capture several instances of outdoor evergreens illuminated with Christmas lights. Though General Electric sponsored community lighting competitions during the 1920s, it would take until the mid-1950s for the use of such lights to be adopted by average households.
Christmas lights found use in places other than Christmas trees. By 1919, city electrician John Malpiede began decorating the new Civic Center Park in Denver, Colorado, eventually expanding the display to the park's Greek Amphitheater and later to the adjacent new Denver City and County Building - City Hall upon its completion in 1932. Soon, strings of lights adorned mantles and doorways inside homes, and ran along the rafters, roof lines, and porch railings of homes and businesses. In recent times, many city skyscrapers are decorated with long mostly-vertical strings of a common theme, and are activated simultaneously in Grand Illumination ceremonies.
In 1963, a boycott of Christmas lights was done in Greenville, North Carolina, to protest the segregation that kept blacks from being employed by downtown businesses in Greenville, during the Christmas sales season. Known as the Black Christmas boycott or "Christmas Sacrifice", it was an effective way to protest the cultural and fiscal segregation in the town with 33% black population. Light decorations in the homes, on the Christmas trees, or outside the house were not shown, and only six houses in the black community broke the boycott that Christmas. North Carolina and the Negro. North Carolina Mayors' Co-operating Committee, 1964. editors, Capus M. Waynick, John C. Brooks and Elsie W. Pitts. Page 94.
In 1973, during an oil shortage triggered by an embargo by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (later OPEC), President Nixon asked Americans not to put up Christmas lights to conserve energy use. Many Americans complied, and there were fewer displays that year.
In the mid-2000s, the video of the home of Carson Williams was widely distributed on the internet as a viral video. It garnered national attention in 2005 from The Today Show on NBC, Inside Edition and the CBS Evening News and was featured in a Miller television commercial. Williams turned his hobby into a commercial venture, and was commissioned to scale up his vision to a scale of 250,000 lights at a Denver shopping center, as well as displays in parks and zoos.
Christmas lights (also called twinkle lights, holiday lights, mini lights or fairy lights), that are strands of electric lights used to decorate homes, public/commercial buildings and during the Christmas season are amongst the most recognized forms of Christmas lighting. Christmas lights come in a dazzling array of configurations and colors. The small "midget" bulbs commonly known as fairy lights are also called Italian lights in some parts of the U.S., such as Chicago. The first miniature Christmas lights were manufactured in Italy.
The types of lamps used in Christmas lighting also vary considerably, reflecting the diversity of modern lighting technology in general. Common lamp types are incandescent light bulbs and now light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which are being increasingly encouraged as being more energy efficient. Less common are neon lamp sets. Fluorescent lamp sets were produced for a limited time by Sylvania in the mid-1940s.
Christmas lights using incandescent bulbs are somewhat notorious for being difficult to troubleshoot and repair. In the 1950s and 1960s, the series circuit connected light sets would go completely dark when a single bulb failed. So in the fairly recent past, the mini-lights have come with shunts to allow a set to continue to operate with a burned out bulb. However, if there are multiple bulb failures or a shunt is bad, the string can still fail. There are two basic ways to troubleshoot this: a one by one replacement with a known good bulb, or by using a test light to find out where the voltage gets interrupted. One example made specifically for Christmas lights is the LightKeeper Pro.
When Christmas light manufacturers first started using LEDs the colors seemed very dull and uninspiring. Even the white lights, which were typically single-chip LEDs, glowed with a faintly yellowish color that made them look cheap and unattractive according to the general public at the time.
A familiar pastime during the holiday season is to drive or walk around in the evening to see the lights displayed on homes. While some homes have no lights, others may have ornate displays requiring weeks to construct. Some displays are created for charities or local councils, for instance an annual display in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, is hosted around the Christmas period to raise money for their Lincolnshire and Nottingham air ambulances. They successfully raised £1,389.09 during their 2022 attempt. A few have made it to the Extreme Christmas shown on HGTV, at least one requiring a generator and another requiring separate electrical service to supply the electric power required. In Australia and New Zealand, chains of Christmas lights were quickly adopted as an effective way to provide ambient lighting to verandas, where cold beer is often served in the hot summer evenings. Since the late 20th century, increasingly elaborate Christmas lights have been displayed, and driving around between 8 and 10 p.m. to view the lights has become a popular form of family entertainment. In some areas Christmas lighting becomes a fierce competition, with town councils offering awards for the best decorated house, in other areas it is seen as a co-operative effort, with residents priding themselves on their street or their neighbourhood. Today it is estimated that more than 150 million light sets are sold in America each year, with more than 80 million homes decorated with holiday lights. The town of McAdenville, North Carolina, United States have a tradition called Christmas Town USA where the entire town is decorated with Christmas lights.Skarda, E. (2011, November 21). The 9 Most Christmassy Towns in America. Retrieved November 22, 2014. The town of Lobethal, South Australia, in the Adelaide Hills, is famed for its Christmas lighting displays. Many residents expend great effort to have the best light display in the town. Residents from the nearby city of Adelaide often drive to the town to view them. In the US, the television series The Great Christmas Light Fight features homes across the country in a competition of homes with elaborate Christmas light displays.
Halloween is the most popular, with miniature light strings having black-insulated wires and semi-opaque orange bulbs. Later sets had some transparent purple bulbs (a representation of black, similar to blacklight), a few even have transparent green, or a translucent or semi-opaque lime green (possibly representing as in Ghostbusters, or creatures like or ). Two types of icicle lights are sold at Halloween: all-orange, and a combination of purple and green known as "slime lights".
Easter lights are often produced in . These typically have white wire and connectors.
Red, white, and blue lights are produced for Independence Day, as well as U.S. flag and other patriotic-themed ornaments. Net lights have been produced with the lights in a U.S. flag pattern. In 2006, some stores carried stakes with LEDs that light fiber-optics, looking similar to fireworks.
These above light strings are occasionally used on anyway, usually to add extra variety to the colors of the lights on the tree.
Various types of patio lighting with no holiday theme are also made for summertime. These are often clear white lights, but most are ornament sets, such as made of metal or bamboo, or plastic ornaments in the shape of barbecue , and , or even various . Some are made of decorative wire or mesh, in abstract art shapes such as dragonflies, often with glass "gems" or . Light sculptures are also made in everything from wire-mesh to artificial palm trees outlined in rope lights.
In Pakistan, fairy lights are often used to decorate in celebration of Eid ul-Fitr at Chaand Raat, which occurs at the end of Ramadan. In India on Diwali too, homes, shops and streets are decorated with strings of fairy lights.
More cities in the US are establishing schemes to recycle Christmas lights, with towns organizing drop-off points for handing in old lights. Towns offer Christmas light recycling . Northwest Herald. November 25, 2013. Retrieved December 3, 2013. Briefs: Recycle lights before and after Christmas . November 23, 2013. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
As of December 2019, most scrap metal recycling centers will purchase traditional incandescent Christmas lights for between US$0.10/Lb - USD$0.20/Lb (€0.20/Kg - €0.40/kg). This scrap value is primarily derived from the recycling value of the copper found inside the wire, and to a lesser degree, other metals and alloys. As an example, a standard strand of modern incandescent Christmas lights weighing about 0.72 Lbs (0.33 kilo) was found to have less than 20% recoverable copper by weight., ScrapMetalJunkie.com, Retrieved June 3rd, 2020.
Installing holiday lighting may be a safety hazard when incorrectly connecting several strands of lights, repeatedly using the same extension cords for the lights to plug into or using an unsafe ladder during the installation process.
Light sculptures can be either flat (most common) or three-dimensional. Flat sculptures are the motifs, and are often on metal frames, but garland can also be attached to outdoor motifs. Indoor motifs often have a multicolored plastic backing sheet, sometimes holographic. 3D sculptures include deer or reindeer (even moose) in various positions, and with or without , often with a electric motor to move the head up and down or side to side as if grazing. These and other 3D displays may be bare-frame, or be covered with garland, looped and woven transparent plastic cord or acrylic, or natural or goldtone-painted . are a popular design for municipal displays, so as not to be misconstrued as a government endorsement of religion, or so they can be left up all winter.
Some places make huge displays of these during December, such as Callaway Gardens, Life University, and Lake Lanier Islands in the U.S. state of Georgia. In east Tennessee, the cities of Chattanooga, Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg have light sculptures up all winter. Gatlinburg also has custom ones for Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day, while Pigeon Forge puts on its tall lampposts for spring, and for winter has a steamboat and the famous picture of U.S. Marines Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, in addition to the city's historic Old Mill.
Some sculptures have that sequence circuits of lights, so that the object appears to be in motion. This is used for things such as snowflakes falling, Santa Claus waving, a peace dove flapping its , or train wheels rolling.
Light sculptures
Christmas light sculptures, also called motifs, are used as Christmas decorations and for other . Originally, these were large wire sculpture metalwork pieces made for public displays, such as for a municipal government to place on , and to place on . Since the 1990s, these are also made in small plastic home versions that can be hung in a window, or on a door or wall. Framed motifs can be lit using mini lights or rope light, and larger scale motifs and sculptures may use C7 bulbs.
Examples
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