For maybe the last 10-15 years, the spread of the festive season has crept into parts of our lives that many of us find astonishing.
Who would have thought, for instance, that the ‘competition’ for most decorated (not even ‘best’ decorated) family home would become such an emotive subject? There is no doubting the attention value of a local house illuminated from chimney to front door with snowflakes, Santa and his Reindeer, seasonal eulogies and even the Manger in Bethlehem – really! And, handled tastefully, it can create a sense of neighbourhood pride and a powerful festive fillip as we wander the streets posting Christmas cards to family and friends.
But so often, life’s not like that. Streets can be full of competing homes who, each year, add more and more garish dancing lights and festive sound effects in a distasteful bout of one-upmanship – and often with little or no attention to the impact on their more sensitive neighbours or their own electricity bills. This year, we saw the first ‘Christmas home’ in November and the chances are that the effort to get the building ready for the Seasonal ‘switch-on’ was part of the competitive pact as well. By that, we mean it was probably just the flick of a switch. So many homes simply leave the lights in place from one season to the next that it has ceased to be a creative contest – if that’s what you call it!
Well no prizes for guessing that it might have ‘kicked-off’ in the US. However its true inauguration was much closer to home at the beginning of an almost circular journey. The tradition of decorating homes began in Ireland in the early 1800’s prior to the start of mass immigration to the US. A devout Catholic nation, the use of garlands and religious artifacts in windows to symbolize the Christmas season was a simple, creative and effective embellishment in an otherwise depressed national psyche. At Christmas time, Irish families would leave their doors unlocked and place burning candles, or Christmas lights, in their windows as a message to a priest that those within were believers and the priest was welcome. Of course, the Irish explained away their Christmas light custom to their English overlords by saying that the custom simply meant their home was symbolically open to Mary and Joseph, who had sought and not found refuge that first Christmas Eve.
So, the Irish took their deep-seated beliefs with them to the New World and what followed was a cultural and innovation collision that, at the very least, explains our love of bright lights. In 1879, contrary to popular opinion, Edison did NOT invent the light bulb. That honour went to Davy, Swann and Brush. However, he did discover how to make an electric light that glowed and lasted a long time. Shortly after Edison’s technical leap, the vice president of his company, Edward Johnson, decided to adorn his Christmas tree with eighty red, white, and blue bulbs and put it on display in his New York home for others to see.
The custom grew from placing a few simple candles in windows to hanging and placing thousands of electric Christmas lights, in every imaginable shape and size, on homes, in neighborhoods, on municipal buildings and churches. From that Christmas light show beginning in the 1880s, we now place electric Christmas lights on our windows, rooftops, in and about our gardens and plants, fences, and every other conceivable location. And, of course, as more and more of the people of the UK traveled to the US for holidays, family visits and business, so the inevitable next step was for the tradition to return, enhanced(?), to our shores.
So there you have it. You can blame the Americans or the Irish or even Thomas Edison himself for our ‘Blackpool Illuminations’ style statements of Christmas individuality. But you will only have yourselves to blame when the electricity bill creeps through your letter box in January!
Posted by Idealogy
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