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Christmas lights (also known as fairy lights, festive lights or string lights) are lights often used for decoration in celebration of Christmas, often on display throughout the Christmas season including Advent and Christmastide. The custom goes back to when Christmas trees were decorated with candles, which symbolized Christ being the light of the world.[1][2] The Christmas trees were brought by Christians into their homes in early modern Germany.[3][4][5][6]
Christmas trees displayed publicly and illuminated with electric lights became popular in the early 20th century. By the mid-20th century, it became customary to display strings of electric lights along streets and on buildings; Christmas decorations detached from the Christmas tree itself. In the United States and Canada, it became popular to outline private homes with such Christmas lights in tract housing starting in the 1960s. By the late 20th century, the custom had also been adopted in other nations, including outside the Western world, notably in Japan and Hong Kong. It has since spread throughout Christendom.[7][1]
In many countries, Christmas lights, as well as other Christmas decorations, are traditionally erected on or around the first day of Advent.[8][9] In the Western Christian world, the two traditional days when Christmas lights are removed are Twelfth Night and Candlemas, the latter of which ends the Christmas-Epiphany season in some denominations.[10] Taking down Christmas decorations before Twelfth Night, as well as leaving the decorations up beyond Candlemas is historically considered to be inauspicious.[11][12]
- ^ a b Felix, Antonia (1999). Christmas in America. Courage Books. ISBN 9780762405947. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
German families brought a small tree into the home at Christmas time as a symbol of the Christ child, and decorated the boughs with cutout paper flowers, bright foil, apples, sweets, and other fancy treats. Another feature of Christmas that took a uniquely American turn in the nineteenth century is the tradition of Christmas lights. Candles were traditionally placed on the Christmas tree to symbolize Jesus as the light of the world.
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Kelly2010was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "History of Christmas Trees". History. 2015. Archived from the original on 21 November 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree.
- ^ North Dakota Outdoors, Volumes 27–28. State Game and Fish Department of North Dakota. 1964. p. lvii.
The first person to put candles on a Christmas tree was the 16th century German theologian Martin Luther.
- ^ Dohmen, Christoph (2000). No Trace of Christmas?: Discovering Advent in the Old Testament. Liturgical Press. p. 62. ISBN 9780814627150.
Christmas lights remind us Christians of Jesus, the light of the world, who causes God's love to shine forth for all humanity.
- ^ Michelin (10 October 2012). Germany Green Guide Michelin 2012–2013. Michelin. p. 73. ISBN 9782067182110.
Advent: The four weeks before Christmas are celebrated by counting down the days with an advent calendar, hanging up Christmas decorations and lightning an additional candle every Sunday on the four-candle advent wreath.
- ^ Normark, Helena (1997). "Modern Christmas". Graphic Garden. Archived from the original on 15 March 2021. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
Christmas in Sweden starts with Advent, which is the await for the arrival of Jesus. The symbol for it is the Advent candlestick with four candles in it, and we light one more candle for each of the four Sundays before Christmas. Most people start putting up the Christmas decorations on the first of Advent.
- ^ "Candlemas". British Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 6 January 2017. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
Any Christmas decorations not taken down by Twelfth Night (January 5th) should be left up until Candlemas Day and then taken down.
- ^ Raedisch, Linda (1 October 2013). The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year. Llewellyn Publications. p. 161. ISBN 9780738734507. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
- ^ VanSchmus, Emily (29 December 2022). "The Tradition Behind Leaving Up Christmas Decor Through January 6". BH&G. Archived from the original on 2 January 2023. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
This day is called The Feast of Epiphany, The Twelfth Night, or Three Kings Day, and in some parts of the world, it signifies a celebration that's just as big as the one on Christmas Day. And while we'll welcome any excuse to leave the red and gold ornaments and multicolor strand lights up a little longer, tradition says it's actually unlucky to take your tree down before this date.
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