Hanging Christmas Lights
Practice
Walk or drive around your neighborhood for inspiration.
Make a diagram and measure the areas you want to light.
Remember to test lights before you hang them.
Participate in a Denver tradition and leave your lights up through the Stock Show.
Visit Hazard'sGingerbread House in Highlands Ranch. It competed this year in the ABC holiday special, “TheGreat Christmas Light Fight”.
“Those christmas lights keep shining on.”
Christmas lights hung outside your home is a practice rooted in both Christian tradition and the history of Denver.
The history of placing candles to illuminate trees at Christmas can be traced back to the 17th century in Germany. Prior to light being used to decorate trees, Christians would put candles in their windows as a symbol their home was a safehouse for other Christians traveling.
It was Thomas Edison's colleague who first strung colored electric lights around a Christmas tree in Edison's laboratory in 1882. But the tradition of outdoor lights at Christmas is a part of Denver history. In 1914, Denver electrician D.D. Sturgeon wanted to cheer up his son, David, who was too ill to come down from the second story of their home to spend Christmas around the tree with his family. Sturgeon dipped some light bulbs in red and green paint, strung them on electrical wire, and hung them on the tree outside his son's window. That tree is still standing 100 years later at 4408 West 34th Avenue.
People in the northwest Denver neighborhood came to see the lights at Sturgeon’s home, and soon neighbors in Denver started decorating their homes with outdoor lights. The Denver Post promoted the first outdoor lighting contest in 1918. By the 1920s, there were so many houses being lit up in Denver with Christmas lights that the city was marketed as the “Christmas Capital of the World”.
In the 1940’s Denver city leaders began encouraging residents to leave up their Christmas lights until the end of the National Western Stock Show to welcome visitors from around the world. One of the Christmas lights displays that remains lit from Thanksgiving until the end of the National Western Stock Show is the Castle Rock star.
Christmas lights hung outside your home are a tangible way to brighten the season for your neighbors. It may be a single strand lining the roof or an elaborate visual display, hanging Christmas lights is a historic Denver tradition that brings joy and light to your neighborhood.
