what is the religious significance of christmas lights?

Answer 1

They just look nice. I guess they could be linked to candles (used in churches) or the Star of Bethlehem, but I realy think that the real reason for them is decortive not religious.

Answer 2

Obviously the lights make Christmas Trees more of a focal point. However the religious significance is with reference to "The Light of the World" - read the opening verses of St John's Gospel.

Answer 3

The Church has taken the idea of light and assigned it to Jesus (light of the world). But the Christmas lights themselves go way back before that to the Pagan midwinter festivals celebrated by the Romans and their predecessors. Christmas/Yule/Midwinter was traditionally held around the shortest day (22nd December this year) and invilved lots of lights, candles and fires to help beat the winter blues and keep away bad spirits for another year. And was a good excuse for feasting on the last of the preserved meat from the previous autumn!

Answer 4

The first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree was the creation of Edward H. Johnson, an associate of inventor Thomas Edison. While he was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, a predecessor of today's Con Edison electric utility, he had Christmas tree light bulbs especially made for him. He proudly displayed his Christmas tree, which was hand-wired with 80 red, white and blue electric incandescent light bulbs the size of walnuts, on December 22, 1882 at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Local newspapers ignored the story, seeing it as a publicity stunt. However, it was published by a Detroit newspaper reporter, and Johnson became the Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights. By 1900, businesses started stringing up Christmas lights behind their windows. Christmas lights were too expensive for the average person. Electric Christmas lights did not become the majority replacing candles until 1930.

In 1895, U.S. President Grover Cleveland proudly sponsored the first electrically lit Christmas tree in the White House. It was a huge specimen, featuring more than a hundred multicolored lights. The first commercially produced Christmas tree lamps were manufactured in strings of multiples of eight sockets by the General Electric Co. of Harrison, New Jersey. Each socket took a miniature two-candela carbon-filament lamp.

From that point on, electrically illuminated Christmas trees, but only indoors, grew with mounting enthusiasm in the United States and elsewhere. San Diego in 1904 and New York City in 1912 were the first recorded instances of the use of Christmas lights outside. McAdenville North Carolina claims to have been the first in 1956. The library of congress credits the town for inventing "the tradition of decorating evergreen trees with Christmas lights dates back to 1956 when the McAdenville Men's Club conceived of the idea of decorating a few trees around the McAdenville Community Center." However, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has had "lights" since 1931, but did not have real electric lights until 1956. Furthermore, Phildelphia's Christmas Light Show and Disney's Christmas Tree also began in 1956. Though General Electric sponsored community lighting competitions during the 1920s, it would take until the mid 1950s for the use of such lights to be adopted by average households.

Over a period of time, strings of Christmas lights found their way into use in places other than just Christmas trees. Soon, strings of lights adorned mantles and doorways inside homes, and ran along the rafters, roof lines, and porch railings of homes and businesses. In recent times, many city skyscrapers are decorated with long mostly-vertical strings of a common theme, and are activated simultaneously in Grand Illumination ceremonies.

Answer 5

Because they are Christmas lights, not merely "holiday" lights, they hold a deeper significance. This is obviously true for Christians, for whom this season marks the birth of the One they believe is the Light of the World.

Answer 6

There is none.
Come on, get real: electricity, 19th century;Christmas lights 20th century. Only significance - making money for the lights manufacturers!

Answer 7

I think it has to do with candles on a tree but lighting the was annoying so they made lights instead... I think that was the little match girl, though.

Answer 8

The star that shown in the night over the Nativity Sight of Jesus Birth that leads the Three Wise Men to give gifts...
I always hang a star at the top of the Christmas Tree...Now a baby angel to represent the baby we lost...as our Angel...

Answer 9

the lights is a carry over from the Pagan festival of Yule

Answer 10

It is all part of pagan ritual. That includes the time of christmas.