Decorating the tree ... lights, electric flameless candles, and novelty shapes like stars or hearts. By the 1950s, most lights had taken on the teardrop shape we associate today with vintage ...

For many years, those who could afford to would express their Christmas spirit by lighting candles on trees. “Generally, the tree was set up in the parlor and when all the family would come down ...

But what really made a tree a Christmas tree ... white and blue light bulbs and strung them together around it, and placed the trunk on a revolving pedestal, all powered by a generator.

Tinsel-covered Christmas ... like on the tree shown above. Hanukkah tables were often decorated with ornate tablecloths. In the 1950s, ornaments became more uniform, and colored lights came ...

Normally the tree’s lights were on only from 4 p.m. to midnight daily but Parks and Recreation Director Frank Kelly decided to keep them blazing all night Christmas Eve and through Christmas Day ...

Johnson, Edison’s friend and partner in Edison’s Illumination Company, strung together the first string of electric Christmas tree lights. Johnson hand-wired 80 red, white and blue light bulbs ...

Sticking them on the tree was Johnson’s idea, though. It was a mere three years after Edison had demonstrated that light bulbs were practical at all. The idea of replacing the Christmas tree’s ...