in
New York City ,
Quadrilatero della moda,
Milan,
Italy . The Christmas tree was first recorded to be used by the
Lutheran Christians in the 16th century, with records indicating that a Christmas tree was placed in the
Cathedral of Strasbourg in 1539, under the leadership of the
Protestant Reformer,
Martin Bucer. In homes, "German Lutherans brought the decorated Christmas tree with them; the
Moravians put lighted candles on those trees." These candles symbolized Jesus as the
Light of the World. Until the availability of inexpensive electrical power in the early 20th century, miniature candles were commonly (and in some cultures still are) used.
United States The first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree was the creation of
Edward H. Johnson, an associate of inventor
Thomas Edison. While he was vice president of the
Edison Electric Light Company, he had Christmas tree light bulbs especially made for him. He proudly displayed his Christmas tree, which was hand-wired with 80 red, white and blue electric
incandescent light bulbs the size of walnuts, in December 1882 at his home near
Fifth Avenue in
New York City. Local newspapers ignored the story, seeing it as a
publicity stunt. However, it was published by a
Detroit newspaper reporter, Christmas lights were too expensive for the average person; as such, electric Christmas lights did not become the majority replacement for candles until 1930. 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. 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. 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. 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. ==Technology==