Can we just say that if Christmas lights don’t make you cheerful, not much will.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Here at Topics, we’re all for spreading a bit of Christmas cheer.
In some households, Christmas lights are an important family tradition. Take for instance, the family of Valentine’s Greg Powell.
Greg said his mum and dad, June and Steve Powell, started putting up Christmas lights and cut-out decorations at their Kotara South home in 1952. They did so for 63 years.
“Dad put them up each year and then it was the task of the children to put them up as they grew older,” he said.
The lights were “the old, large coloured-bulb variety”.
“Some of the old bakelite sockets were still being used recently,” he said.
As pine trees died in the front yard of their house, new ones would be planted to ensure the tradition continued.
A Santa that June created with masonite in 1952 was used until the 1980s.
At that time, Greg made a new one that fitted on top of the chimney.
Steve died in 2000 and June passed away this year at age 89.
Their house has now been sold, but the tradition lives on. Their lights and decorations will be erected at the homes of their children and grandchildren.
Christmas lights history
Hearing the Powell’s story and seeing the lights up around town got us thinking. How did this tradition originate?
We took a big step back to the 1700s and found that attaching candles to Christmas trees was common. We’re not so sure about the safety of this practice, but at least the trees looked pretty.
It was the British royals who started a wider trend. In 1848, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert gathered around a lit Christmas tree with their children. Depictions of the family and their tree were published, lighting the way for a new tradition in British society.
Thomas Edison developed a string of Christmas lights in 1880 as a marketing device for electricity. He erected a display of lights along the railroad that passed between Manhattan and Philadelphia.
His light display fascinated people and he became known as “the enchanter”. The light show was a clever tactic to help win a contract to power Manhattan with electricity.
In 1882, Edison’s colleague Edward Johnson displayed the first Christmas tree with electric lights in America. He erected the 80-light display at his home in Fifth Avenue, Manhattan.
Illuminated Christmas trees soon became popular. That is, if you had the money to buy one.
The ball was now rolling on a tradition that would eventually become a global phenomenon.
In Australia, chains of Christmas lights are often used to light verandas. This was first done to celebrate the season. It also prevented the spilling of beer on long hot summer evenings.
Untangling the lights
As part of the history of Christmas lights, we shouldn’t forget the efforts that go into these displays.
Untangling lights and erecting them on houses can be hard work.
And sometimes fathers like to pass on that hard work to sons.
This was depicted beautifully in the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, when Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) passed a huge tangle of lights to his son Russ (Johnny Galecki – who now stars in The Big Bang Theory).
“Unravel these. We need to check every bulb. Oop. Little knot here, you can work on that,” Clark told Russ.
