The practice of using small candles to decorate Christmas tree’s is said to date back to the middle of the 17th century in Germany.
However,
it was to be 150 years before the custom became firmly established.
In
the beginning the candles were made of tallow, derived from animal fat, which
gave off equal amounts of smoke and odor.
There
was also the risk of the tree catching fire although tree’s were normally cut
fresh of Christmas eve and therefore more difficult to ignite however a bucket
of water always stood by the tree just in case.
The
first candles were glued to the branches with wax but eventually candleholders
appeared and then an American called Frederick Artz invented a candle holder
made of tin with a tray to catch the drips of wax and a spring clip to attach
it to the branch.
A
Christmas tree was lit by electricity for the first time in New York in 1882 when
Edward Johnson, a colleague of Thomas Edison, lit a Christmas tree with a
string of 80 small electric light bulbs which he had made himself.
As
the bulbs were all handmade, they were two expensive to be commercially viable
however by 1900 some large stores put up large illuminated trees to attract
customers.
It
was in 1903 when The Every Ready Company of New York began to make strings of
28 lights which cost the equivalent of a week’s wages.
It
wasn’t until 1927 when the General Electric Company of America produced strings
of miniature bulbs like we get today.
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