The Origin of the Lighting of the Christmas Tree

by Ctd 2005

When I was growing up, my mother, sister, and I were responsible for decorating the Christmas tree.  My father would drag our boxed up artificial tree from the attic, and we would begin separating the branches into piles according to the colors on the metal tips of the branches. 

As Christmas music played on the record player, we placed the metal tips into the holes on the tree stand.  Next, we placed the multi-colored blinking lights on our ceiling-high tree.  Each year, my mother had to replace bulbs on the useful Christmas tree light strands with bulbs from abandoned Christmas light strands to get the lights twinkling properly.

Once the lights were blinking, we added toy drums, ice skating girls, football toting Santas, angels, and other toy-like Christmas ornaments to our tree.  When I was a small child, my mother didn’t think the tree was decorated unless the green branches were draped with silver tinsel.  By the time I was a teen, my mother’s fascination with tinsel had passed.

One year after we’d finished decorating our tree, my sister thought our tree was particularly beautiful, so she went to school and invited her high school friends to our home for our first Lighting of the Christmas Tree.   Later that day, my sister told my mother about the upcoming event.  My mother didn’t tell my sister to cancel the celebration.  In fact, she helped her plan the event.

On the day of the Lighting of the Christmas Tree, we had punch, cake, and various foods.  At some point in the evening, my family and our guests gathered in our dark living room.  My sister pushed the button that turned on the Christmas tree lights, the lights shined, and comically, we said, “Aahh!  Ooh!”   Once the Christmas tree lights were turned on, we sung a Christmas song and returned to eating, laughing, talking and playing games.

We continued having the Lighting of the Christmas Tree for a few years.  Each year the crowd grew, and one year we even had two party crashers attend.

July 27th, 2009 by Yolanda D. Young | Posted in Holiday Parties, Party Stories, Party Themes | (0)