Festive Man Fined $232 for Adorning His Car with Christmas Lights

Edison credited with first Christmas light display

The history of Christmas lights and science is closely connected. In fact, the first outdoor electric Christmas lights (separate from a tree) were installed and displayed by Thomas Edison. The inventor of the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb created the display outside his inventor's laboratory in 1880. Edison's partner in the laboratory, Edward Johnson invented the string of Christmas lights several years later.

The first string of lights consisted of 80 small electric lights bulbs in sequence. By 1890 these strings were being mass produced and available for purchase by the public in department stores. Large displays of Christmas lights put on by departments stores and government buildings became a popular practice throughout the US at the turn of the 20th century and it became a Christmas tradition for many people to tour their city looking out for these colorful displays.

As the price of the lights decreased individuals began to create displays on their own homes and gardens. These displays, generally in the suburbs consist of elaborate arrangements of Christmas lights and other seasonal decorations. Some are as intricate as timing their displays with music, others tell a specific Christmas story.

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With the advent of solar lights, many of these displays have got even bigger and brighter, no longer hindered by a potentially crushing electricity bill. In tragic news for Christmas light fans, a well-known Canadian man has died this year after falling from his roof whilst maintaining his display. Doug Musson was well-known in his local area for his elaborate Christmas light display, installed every year for more than 30 years. But the 82-year old man died on Monday after falling from a ladder whilst inspecting a leak on the roof of his house that he was worried would make the pavement slippery for the many bystanders coming to admire his display.