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 Whether it is the shine of Christmas morning or the shadowy glow of ghouls and goblins on Halloween, holiday lighting has been a tradition aiding Americans in festive decorating as early as the seventeenth century. A long standing tradition of colonial Americans was using small candles to illuminate Christmas trees, while society’s more elite at the time would use large ornate candle displays. Though early examples exist, it was not until Germany and the rest of Europe adopted festive illumination in the nineteenth century that worldwide popularity was gained.
By the late eighteen-hundreds, fixtures such as small lanterns and glass ornaments were being added to the branches of Christmas trees to hold candles for radiance. In the late eighteen-hundreds, more specifically eighteen-eighty-two, the first documented use of electric bulbs to brighten a Christmas tree took place. The owner of the tree, Edward H. Johnson, had a company custom manufacture the bulbs for his tree. It was also around the same year the Savoy Theatre in England held a grand display of holiday lighting known ever since as “fairy lights” in the U.K. General Electric oversaw the creation of the first strings of Christmas bulbs for commercial display which gained popularity in the nineteen-thirties and popularity with the average American home by the nineteen-sixties.
The Disney tree, The Rockefeller Center, and The Philadelphia Christmas Light Show all adopted electric bulbs in the year nineteen-fifty-six. The era of the nineteen-fifties to present day seemed to usher with them a modern and monumental change to holiday lighting. Now available to all Americans are festive lamps for use on almost every surface imaginable both inside and outside the home. We can have net lanterns for use over one’s bushes, all types of series of string bulbs for all types of yard trees, illuminated sculptures with the ability to be pre-purchased shaped to any holiday character imaginable, or even displays utilizing hundreds of thousands of bulbs.
It may have been traditions held by those who celebrate Christmas that started the trend in holiday lighting, but it has grown to incorporate almost every major holiday. Halloween holds the title of the festival that employs the use of celebratory radiance, only second to Christmas, with the large selection of orange and black bulbs, shadowy ghouls, and even re-fitted orange or purple and green icicle lamps among many other illuminated sculptures to help celebrate this spooky eve.
With the large spectrum of bulbs available such as incandescent, LED, fluorescent, neon, and fiber optic, and such large ranges of colors from deep red to a pastel blue, arrangements of festive radiance are also created for days such as Independence Day and Easter. This fashion of celebratory radiance has even been adopted by countries such as Japan, and India for the celebration of their Eid ul-Fitr festival. Other places such as Gatlinburg, Tennessee have placed in use the ever popular growing two and three dimensional lamp sculpture motifs to help celebrate St. Patrick’s and Valentine’s Day. Whatever the case, it is apparent, especially given rise to new fields such as illuminated sculptures, the trend of holiday lighting is far from decline with decorations for all festivals imaginable available to consumers online.
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