Seasonal Questions

[fauxklore]

1) When did Christmas lights on houses start? Obviously it was before I was born, since I've seen them my entire life, and I know that there were candles on Christmas trees in the 19th century, but what about those lights strung around windows and roof eaves and such?

2) On something more relevant to my own life, I have actually made it through 1 Maccabees (since I am making a push on one of my goals for 2012) and I am confused about some dates. The feast for the dedication of the temple is the 25th of Kislev, which is correct for Chanukah. But, later on there is a feast day to celebrate the slaying of Nicanor, which is given as the 13th of Adar. That is suspiciously close to Purim, which is the 14th of Adar. (And which is actually Biblical, since the Book of Esther is canonical, unlike Maccabees.) And even later on, there's another celebration related to cleansing the tower of Jerusalem, with its date given as "the three and twentieth day of the second month" which should mean the 23rd of Iyyar. Which is quite close to Lag B'omer, which is the 18th of Iyyar and has a more complicated historical basis, especially for Litvak rationalists like me.

Can someone explain what is going on here and will I be even more confused after reading 2 Maccabees?

Comments

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

Your first question intrigued me. Wikipedia (if it is correct) has the following: "By the mid-20th century, it became customary to display strings of electric lights as Christmas decoration detached from the Christmas tree itself, along streets and buildings. In the United States, it became popular to outline private homes with such Christmas lights in tract housing beginning in the 1960s."

I also thought this articles was interesting (though it's mostly about tree lights), and it includes interesting source links: http://www.oldchristmaslights.com/timeline.htm

[ron_newman]

I don't see an article on that page -- just a bunch of links. Which one did you read?

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

Doh! Sorry, wrong link!

This is the one I meant: http://gizmodo.com/5425395/christmas-lights-the-brief-and-strangely-interesting-history-of

[ron_newman]

Thanks. It looks like the http://www.oldchristmaslights.com website is defunct, but has been replaced by http://www.oldchristmasTREElights.com, with the old content restored there.