When it comes to Christmas decorating ideas, the consumer is flooded with options every year: mini Christmas lights, purple, red, blue or green LED Christmas lights, Christmas candles, old-fashioned Christmas lights with torpedo bulbs, LED Christmas lights networking – the options are endless.
As a small business owner selling a unique type of traditional Christmas Tree Candle, I enjoy looking at the trends in Christmas decorating and seeing what kind of Christmas tree lights people buy. This little light is of great importance in the Christmas tradition. It has a long and fascinating history.
Christmas Lights – History
It all started with the simple Christmas candle, which is attributed to Martin Luther, who, legend has it, invented the Christmas tree in the 16th century. The Christmas tree quietly survived for centuries until electric Christmas tree lighting came on the scene in the early 1900s and, as they say, the rest is history.
The first electric Christmas lights debuted at the White House in 1895, thanks to President Grover LED Christmas Lights Cleveland. The idea started to catch on, but lights were expensive, so only the richest of the rich could afford it at first. GE began offering Christmas light kits in 1903. And starting in 1917, electric string Christmas lights began to hit department stores. Costs gradually came down, and the largest seller of holiday lights, a company called NOMA, had great success as consumers began purchasing the new lights across the country.
Early designs
Many early Christmas bulbs were shaped like what they had replaced: the classic Christmas tree candle. The shape of the candle fell out of fashion and, over time, new varieties in the shape of glass balls, animals, lanterns and figures of Santa Claus appeared on the scene. A new and improved candle-shaped bubble light resurfaced later in the 20th century. This was filled with a colored liquid that leaked out and cast a flickering light onto the tree as the bulb warmed up. Every now and then, you can still find vintage bubble Christmas lights like these at flea markets or antique stores. Electric Christmas lights continued to dominate until the 1980s.
Today’s consumers have embraced LED Christmas lights with as much enthusiasm as their great-grandparents gobbled up the first generation of electric Christmas tree lights 90 years ago. Is the LED Christmas light close to saturation point? Every year I think so, but then manufacturers come up with a new twist: LED lights on a net, LED Christmas lights on a big mesh net, blinking LED Christmas tree lights, or some other variation. Hope for the LED-weary Christmas connoisseur
One thing is clear: LED Christmas lights are a great energy saver. That is good. But virtue has its price. LED lighting has a different optical quality, so different that some Christmas lovers feel it is sterile and devoid of warmth. Christmas fans skeptical of LEDs who want to give their tree a real glow have been trapped by a lack of options, but persistence pays in the end. There are a few sources that supply the original Christmas tree candles and traditional Christmas tree candle holders, and people are starting to take advantage of them as an alternative.
If LED Christmas lights are too soulless for you, but you don’t want to go back to the energy-guzzling electric lights you grew up with, consider switching to traditional Christmas tree candles this year. They have been around for centuries, much longer than electric light. And they are even more environmentally friendly than LED Christmas lights because they consume absolutely no electrical energy.
Christmas off the grid
Let’s say you are attracted to the idea of an eco-friendly candle-based Christmas tree and have decided that you “won’t accept LEDs as an answer.” He would like to go off the grid and go sailing this year. You’ll have some decisions to make, but the process of looking at your design options and figuring out what you like best is fun.