By Peter Pavarini
Yes, it’s true. Christmas lights can be seen from outer space. NASA’s polar-orbiting satellite has determined that US cities are 20-50% brighter during the month of December. [i] An evening walk through just about any American neighborhood this time of year confirms that phenomenon.
Several nights ago, after I gave Sophie her last walk of the day, I did a quick internet search and discovered that the winter holidays were mostly dark until the late 19th century.[ii] The presidency of Grover Cleveland would have been mostly forgotten except for two interesting facts: 1) until Donald Trump’s recent re-election, Cleveland was the only person to serve two discontinuous terms in that office, and 2) he and his youthful wife Frances Folsom[iii] popularized the custom of displaying an electrically illuminated Christmas tree while he served his second term as president in 1895.
The First Illuminated Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree tradition traces its origin to 16th century Germany, but it didn’t make its way to the United States until the 1840s. Until then, celebrating the holiday with decorated evergreens was frowned upon by most Americans. Beginning with the Puritans, the practice of putting up trees – decorated or not – was seen as a pagan ritual[iv] and punishable in some places as a criminal offense. Not until the influx of German and Irish immigrants in the early 19th century did the Christmas tree tradition become accepted in the United States.
In 1846, Britain’s beloved royals, Queen Victoria and her German prince Albert, were pictured in a London newspaper standing around a Christmas tree with their children. Soon thereafter, wealthy, fashion-conscious people on the East Coast took up the practice and the American tradition was born. However, Christmas trees of that time remained small by today’s standards and were decorated only with colored strands of popcorn, fruits and nuts. If a tree was illuminated at all, candles were used – exposing the celebrants to an obvious fire hazard.
Everything changed after Thomas Edison introduced the first practical electric light bulb. In 1882, Edison’s colleague Edward Johnson came up with a way to captivate his Manhattan neighbors by hanging 80 red, white and blue hand-wired bulbs on the majestic Christmas tree in the parlor of his townhome. The novelty of Johnson’s holiday display so impressed his neighbors that New York’s socialites soon hired electricians to illuminate Christmas trees in their Gilded Age mansions. Historians say New Yorkers spent as much as $300 per tree to electrify their Christmas parties, the equivalent of $10,000 in today’s currency.
By the early 1900s, retailers began offering more affordable Christmas lights in 8-lamp strands and some stores made these arrangements available for rental at the attractive price of $1.50. But, even at that price, the custom was not affordable for most people until the 1940s when the rural electrification created a market for mass-produced Christmas lights.
Shining a Light on Homes
It’s easy to understand why Christmas trees were electrified along with nearly everything else in modern society[v], but there’s no good reason why Americans chose to illuminate the outside of their homes when there wasn’t a Christmas tree in sight. The practice seems to have arisen during the track housing boom of the post-World War II era. Previously, some businesses had strung Christmas lights on their buildings [vi], but outlining a personal residence in garish lights was considered gauche until just about everyone began doing it in the 1960s. Some say this was just an expression of the joy people feel during the Christmas season, but more likely it reflected the growing commercialization of this sacred holiday. Whatever the impetus, the age of competitive outdoor lighting rapidly took off and spread across the globe. [vii]
A Uniquely American Indulgence
Today, Americans purchase 150 million Christmas light sets annually allowing them to light more than 80 million homes across the nation. Of course, some people still abstain from the custom for ideological or practical reasons[viii]. Yet, according to estimates up to 90% of American homes are illuminated in some way around the holidays.
Those concerned about climate change can be expected to ask about energy consumption associated with outdoor Christmas lights. I’ve seen estimates that between 3.5 and 6.6 billion kilowatt hours are spent every December lighting our homes. Even with the increased use of LED lights, which consume 75% less energy than incandescent lights, the nominal cost of this practice was said to be $645 million in 2020 dollars. That equates to an increase of $12 to $20 in the amount of an average homeowner’s electric bill during the month of December.
To illustrate what this means in more familiar terms, the state of Texas uses nearly the same amount of electricity during the holiday season as the entire country of Indonesia consumes year- round. That amount of energy could also power 14 million refrigerators for an entire year.
Outdoor Christmas Lights Meet the “Nanny State”
Personally, I’m not terribly concerned that our seasonal light show can be seen from outer space or that the energy consumed could be used for other purposes. I’m sure the power spent on large screen TVs would easily give Christmas decorations a run for their money. What troubles me more is that local governments and homeowner associations have now set their sights on this practice and, in some instances, have begun regulating the display of Christmas lights in the “public interest”.
Admittedly, there’s very little time between Halloween and the winter holidays. One barely has a chance to take down the skeletons, black cats and pumpkins before the weather – at least in the northern states – turns cold and it becomes harder to put up Christmas without gloves. Nonetheless, in some communities, it’s verboten to install Christmas lights (much less turn them on) before the weekend after Thanksgiving Day. This year, that meant December 1st – when the gales of November had already ushered in the first wintry blast of arctic air. At the other end of the holiday season, some HOAs require Christmas lights to be taken down by “the first day after December 25th on which the temperature is over 40 degrees, or if winter cold has already set in, on a sunny day with winds no more than 5 mph.”
Thus, the relatively benign tradition of outdoor Christmas lighting has run into what some call the “Nanny State”.
I dwell in a community which delegates the subject of outdoor Christmas lighting – at least in our communal areas – to a committee of well-intentioned but somewhat opinionated neighbors. It’s my understanding that the first question tackled by this committee was whether homeowners would be offended by the display of purely secular holiday lighting paid for by our HOA. For example, are illuminated wreaths acceptable to those who do not celebrate Christmas? Should our lights be all white or multi-colored? Needless to say, I wasn’t asked to serve on this committee.
Mind you, ours is a community that only permits a homeowner to display two types of flags on your house: 1) the flag of your college alma mater – but only on game days, and 2) the flag of the United States of America. If you don’t like those rules, you are welcome to move to an unregulated community where “Don’t Tread on Me”, “BLM” and Ukrainian flags are quite common.
How Christmas Lights Should Be Seen
Welcome to 21st century America. We’ve certainly come a long way from when most people, regardless of their heritage or personal views, considered a few cheerful lights on a dark winter evening to be a simple pleasure.
In the end, I remain a traditionalist. For me, Christmas lights – no matter what name you give them – are powerful symbols of hope. They can and should draw our attention to the real message of Christmas. A child named Jesus was born in a stable over two thousand years ago. He grew up to say many wonderful, inspirational things. Among them is this:
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” John 8:12
I wish each of you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas.
[i] “Holiday Lights Shine Bright in NASA Satellite Views, December 18, 2017, www.space.com/39124-holiday-lights-from-space-nasa-satellite-video.html . On the other hand, despite reports to the contrary, it is not true that the James Webb Space Telescope has discovered city lights on a planet 47 light years away.
[ii] See www.caenlucier.com/blog-press/2020/12/18/untangling-the-history-of-christmas-lights
[iii] At the time of their White House wedding in 1886, Frances Folsom Cleveland was 27 years younger than Grover, making her the youngest woman to serve as First Lady.
[iv] Trees that remained green all year had long been given special meaning by northern Europeans during the winter months. Boughs of pine, spruce and fir were often placed above doors and windows to keep away witches, ghosts and evil spirits.
[v] Lehman’s Hardware in Dalton, Ohio has defied this megatrend by continuing to see non-electric products to Amish families and others preferring a simple lifestyle.
[vi] What my father called “the clam bar look”.
[vii] Japan and Hong Kong are said to have been early adopters of the holiday light tradition with little connection to the celebration of Christmas.
[viii] A boycott of Christmas lights was done in Greenville, North Carolina in 1963 to protest the segregation of Blacks who were excluded from being employed by downtown business during the holiday season. In 1973, in response to the OPEC oil embargo, President Richard Nixon asked Americans not to put up outdoor Christmas lights to reduce energy consumption.
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