Larry Leonhardt

Thomas Edison and Edward Johnson (1880 &1882) and Albert Sadacca (1917).Thomas Edison, the inventor of the first successful practical light bulb, created the very first strand of electric lights. During the Christmas season of 1880, these strands were strung around the outside of his Menlo Park Laboratory. Railroad passengers traveling by the laboratory got their first look at an electrical light display. But it would take almost forty years for electric Christmas lights to become the tradition that we all know and love. Before electric Christmas lights, families would use candles to light up their Christmas trees. This practice was often dangerous and led to many home fires. Edward H. Johnson put the very first string of electric Christmas tree lights together in 1882. Johnson, Edison’s friend and partner in the Edison’s Illumination Company, hand-wired 80 red, white and blue light bulbs and wound them around his Christmas tree. Not only was the tree illuminated with electricity, it also revolved. However, the world was not quite ready for electrical illumination. There was a great mistrust of electricity and it would take many more years for society to decorate its Christmas trees and homes with electric lights. Some credit President Grover Cleveland with spurring the acceptance of indoor electric Christmas lights. In 1895, President Cleveland requested that the White House family Christmas tree be illuminated by hundreds of multi-colored electric light bulbs. On Christmas Eve 1923, President Calvin Coolidge began the country’s celebration of Christmas by lighting the National Christmas Tree with 3,000 electric lights on the Ellipse located south of the While House. Until 1903, when General Electric began to offer pre-assembled kits of Christmas lights, stringed lights were reserved for the wealthy and electrically savvy. The wiring of electric lights was very expensive and required the hiring of the services of a wireman, our modern-day electrician. According to some, to light an average Christmas tree with electric lights before 1903 would have cost $2000.00 in today’s dollars. While Thomas Edison and Edward H. Johnson may have been the first to create electric strands of light in 1880/1882, it was Albert Sadacca who saw a future in selling electric Christmas lights. The Sadacca family owned a novelty lighting company and in 1917 Albert, a teenager at the time, suggested that its store offer brightly colored strands of Christmas lights to the public. By the 1920’s Albert and his brothers organized the National Outfit Manufacturers Association (NOMA), a trade association. NOMA soon became NOMA Electric Co., with its members cornering the Christmas light market until the 1960’s. Today we expect to see the holiday season become aglow with electric strands of light. Think of the variety and range of Christmas lights available in today’s market. We can be grateful to Thomas Edison, Edward H. Johnson and Albert Sadacca for illuminating our holiday season.

Great job on the sprial tree, Your house is also very nice, and clean looking. Did you make the snow flakes on the roof, or did you buy them ?

Where do you store your garage door banners ? I have all my stuff in the attic, but it gets hot during the summer here in Texas. I have it now in the garage in the orginal box.

This is where i found some info: http://weberchristmas.snappages.com/the-how.htm http://members.cox.net/sslc/SSLC_INSTALL.exe this is a program thats does it for u..

Has anyone come up with a Sprial tree calcuator yet, to tell us the spacing between strings ?

I received this card from my son with a 100.00 gift card to HD. Thought this was a neat card.

Went to the Texas City Lowe's after work today to find they had gotten a shippment of christmas lights in, not many, but @ 1.15 a box i bought 2 cases of white, 4 of green, and 4 of red. They had no blue lights at all.

Went to the Texas City Lowe's after work today to find they had gotten a shippment of christmas lights in, not many, but @ 1.15 a box i bought 2 cases of white, 4 of green, and 4 of red. They had no blue lights at all.

Went to the Texas City Lowe's after work today to find they had gotten a shippment of christmas lights in, not many, but @ 1.15 a box i bought 2 cases of white, 4 of green, and 4 of red. They had no blue lights at all.

Went to Lowes today to look at heaters for my daughter, she just moved into a house with no heat, so i thought i would get a head start on finding a heater, ended up buy 2 heaters, 16 boxes of red minis, 16 boxes of blue minis, and 16 boxes of green minis. The cashier said i was the first to buy Christmas lights, They don't have alot out, hope they have more coming, or in container boxes outside..

I was in Hobby Lobby in League City last night, looks like they are getting quite a few lights in.

Will those work with a 80lb bag of concrete ?

We went to the Hobby Lobby in League City, Texas today, they have started putting out Christmas decorations, no lights yet...

I just got 5 boxes of these lights, and was wondering if i can use 1 LOR channel to turn them off and on ?