Make the season bright with Reindeer Knoll - a joyful guide to Christmas traditions, history, activities, and songs. Discover the origins of beloved Christmas customs like decorating trees, Santa Claus, and gift-giving. Learn fun holiday activities like baking cookies, building snowmen, and Christmas crafts. Sing along to classic Christmas carols and songs the whole family will love.
Christmas Tree Lights
Around 1890, candleholders were first used for Christmas candles. Between 1902 and 1914, small lanterns and glass balls to hold the candles started to be used. Early electric Christmas lights were introduced with electrification, beginning in the 1880s.
The illuminated Christmas tree became established in the UK during Queen Victoria's reign, and through emigration spread to North America and Australia.
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, on December 22, 1882, at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Local newspapers ignored the story, seeing it as a publicity stunt.
The White House saw its first electrically lit Christmas tree in 1895, when it was illuminated by President Cleveland’s First Lady, Frances Cleveland.
