Christmas lights North Eastern Queens 2021

Merry Christmas! 2021!

My husband took this video in North Eastern Queens NY where there is no crime. (Because there are no subways you have to take a bus to the subway)

Thousands of years ago ancient Druids and Romans decorated trees. In time Christians embraced the practice as well. Legend has it that Protestant Reformer Martin Luther was the first to put lights on a Christmas tree. Walking home one night Luther was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling through the evergreens he passed.

To share with his family he erected a tree in his home and wired the branches with lit candles.

Soon a star was affixed to the top to represent the star in the east that shone where the baby Jesus laid in a manger. The lights and ornaments came to represent the stars and planets in the sky; many Christians place a manger at the base of the Christmas tree.

Until the mid-19th century most Americans and Brits didn’t have decorated trees in their homes because of its pagan origins. They did begin to grow in popularity however, starting in 1848 in Great Britain. The London News ran an illustration of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children gathered around their candlelit tree in Buckingham Palace.

Now in vogue Christmas trees became part of the British Christmas tradition. Soon the fashionable east coast of the United States adopted the practice too. From there it spread west. And there were lots of fires. The combination of candle light and a dry tree often ended in tragedy. Insurance companies even stopped paying for fires caused by Christmas trees.

In 1880 Thomas Edison was the first to connect lights with wire but was not the first to wrap them on a Christmas tree. He strung them around his laboratory as an advertisement in an effort to gain a contract to provide electricity to Manhattan. His partner Edward Johnson was the first to decorate his Christmas tree with electric lights in 1882. He is the “Father of the Electric Christmas Tree.”

In 1895 when President Grover Cleveland featured the first White House Christmas tree lighted by current. Illuminated by more than 100 multi-colored bulbs the president’s tree started a craze across the nation.

Then in 1917, moved by a tragic fire caused by Christmas tree candles, teen-ager Albert Sadacca took the novelty lights produced by his family and promoted them for use on Christmas trees. They became the first affordable Christmas lights sold for widespread use in the home.

Safety issues now a thing of the past, the lights flew off the shelves. Sadacca then formed NOMA (National Outfit Manufacturer’s Association) which later became the largest holiday light manufacturer in the world.

Even president Calvin Coolidge joined in the fun by lighting the very first National Christmas Tree on the White House lawn on Christmas Eve, 1923.

To this day Christmas lights continue to evolve in technology and in use. Holiday lights first used as a symbol of Christmas (because Jesus is the light of the world) will always be a beacon in the night, physically as well as spiritually.