22 December: Christmas Tree Lights Day

Today is Christmas Tree Lights Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about the lights on your tree.

1. As  Christmas Trees originated in Germany, so did Christmas tree lights, back in the 18^th century. In those days, the lights would be candles attached to the tree by melted wax or with pins.
2. Electric Christmas tree lights are an American invention, starting with Thomas Edison, who used a display of Christmas lights around his factory in 1880 to advertise his light bulbs.
3. The first person known to put electric lights on a Christmas tree was Edward H Johnson, vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company. His lights were custom made for the purpose.
4. The first US President to have Christmas tree lights was Grover Cleveland in 1895, which helped make them popular with the general public. The tradition of lighting the lights on the National Christmas Tree at the White House started with Calvin Coolidge in 1923.
5. In the UK, another name for Christmas lights is “fairy lights”. The first building in the world to be entirely lit by Electricity was the Savoy Theatre in London in 1881. Savoy owner Richard D'Oyly Carte went a step further in 1882 by incorporating miniature lights into the costumes of the fairies in his production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe. Hence fairy lights.
6. In 1900, only the rich could afford to put lights on their trees as it would cost around $2000 in today's money – people then didn't only have to pay for the lights but for a specialised electrician to install them. Pre-wired strings of lights that could be installed by the customers themselves were invented by General Electric in 1903.
7. To encourage sales of Christmas lights, General Electric organised contests for the best domestic Christmas light displays. Competition can still be quite fierce in neighbourhoods on both sides of the Atlantic, even when the only prize is your neighbours admitting you have a better light display than they do.
8. There are Guinness World Records relating to Christmas lights. The most lights on a tree, at time of writing, was 576 on a tree in Belgium in 2010 while the record for the most lights on an artificial tree is 570,546. This record was set by Universal Studios in Japan in 2017. The largest display of Christmas tree lights in terms of the number of trees was set by the Hallmark Channel in New York with a display containing 559 lit trees.
9. How do they get the lights to twinkle? It's actually quite simple. A strip of metal in the bulb melts as it heats up, breaking the circuit. As it cools, the metal solidifies and completes the circuit again, so the lights go on and off.
10. Where do Christmas tree lights go to die? A place called Shijiao, in China, the Christmas tree light recycling capital of the world. 20 million pounds of discarded tree lights end up there a year, where they are separated into their component parts – brass, Copper and plastic, and recycled into new objects and gadgets.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

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