What Were the First Christmas Lights?

Christmas lights have been around a long time. Before the days of electricity, families would fix candles to their Christmas tree and light them, enjoying the rosy glow (this resulted in many housefires. Yikes!). Then in 1882, Edward Johnson (a business partner of Thomas Edison) created the first string of colored Christmas lights and attached them to a rotating tree. People thought they were beautiful, but just one string of eight lights cost a week’s wages (about $80 today), so the idea didn’t catch on until the 1920’s when a cheaper version was created. But neither candles nor electric lights were the first Christmas lights.

The first Christmas lights twinkled down from the sky on a night 2,000 years ago when the Creator of those very lights was born. The same stars that you look up at on a cold winter night are the same stars that shone in the sky when Jesus was born and laid in a manger (well, with the exception of one—you can read all about that star in Matthew 2:1–12).

And what’s incredible is that Jesus, the helpless baby who needed his mother to swaddle and nurse him and needed his father to provide for him, was the very One who, by his power, created perhaps as many as 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s one septillion!) stars. And he sums up his creation of all this in Genesis with:

He made the stars also. (Genesis 1:16b, NKJV)

Wow! What a mighty God we serve!

Now we love exploring God’s creation, and stargazing is a great way to explore the heavens if you don’t own a spaceship (which we don’t!). If you have them, grab binoculars or a telescope, go outside when it’s dark, and look up at the sky. If you live in the city, you might not be able to see many stars, but many places have dark sky reserves nearby, so ask your parents to see if there’s one in your area you can go and visit. Then go and enjoy God’s Christmas lights—lit up all year round!

Here’s just some of what’s out there in the night sky that our Lord and Savior created:

Well, we’re off on another adventure. Until next time, remember Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

We’d love to hear about your adventures in God’s creation! Ask your parents to help you email us at schusoff@answers.tv.