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 Christmas is my favourite time of year and there`s nothing I enjoy more than seeing all the lights and decorations everywhere. In the dark wet stormy depth of winter, christmas lights bring a warm cheerful glow just when it`s needed! Ever since I was very young I always loved seeing christmas lights and couldn`t wait for December to come when the little twinkly coloured lights would start to be seen round windows, trees and bushes, filling me with festive cheer. Even today I will openly admit to feeling the same thing! My christmas light collecting habits started young when I was bought my first set in 1988. I was just 8 years old, and I can still remember them well. Unfortunately I don`t have them today, at least not in working order, but from that time on I knew I wanted to start collecting them. So every year I bought one or two new sets, until 1996. That year, coupled with a higher "income" and more free time during the day (while I was studying for my 6th form A-level course) I bought 15 sets! That`s when the bug bit, and it bit hard! The next year I bought even more and so on until 2000. 2000 was the year the Internet came into my life and as with my other collections, things changed even more, in a way I could never have forseen. My collection of christmas lights up to that point consisted only of British light sets I bought from local shops when they were avaliable for just 2 months of the year. The internet however, allowed me to broaden my collection to include American and European types, new and more importantly old too, and not just at christmas time but all year round! My christmas lights colection probably doubled in size last year as I got totally carried away! Online auction site Ebay is all to blame for that. There are always people selling old unwanted christmas lights on Ebay, even now in the springtime there are many there to choose from, and I was simply overwhelmed by the variety avaliable to me. Today, not quite a year on, I may have 50+ vintage sets of lights, mostly of American origin but also numerous British sets too. Many old sets are so much different to todays, and American ones are so different to British and European ones too, the variety seems endless.  So, in this section of my web site I aim to feature as many of the light sets in my collection as possible. But it`s not only light sets I will feature. Light sets would be useless without the bulbs so I feel it is important to pay attention to the different types of bulbs used in different sets. Now I`m not an avid collector of decorative figural glass bulbs although many people are and I do have some of those. Most of the bulbs featured here will be the sort of thing you would find a whole set of. Also more unusual types sold off the counter, and generally interesting or different versions, they will, in time, feature here.
As with my light bulb collection, at present I don`t know too much about them but I want to find out, and pass on what I learn to the rest of the world. So please- if you have any information about the light sets you see here I would be extremely grateful if you would contact me, and I`ll add it alongside the relavent item. This section will be divided into 5 sub categories. Modern light sets are those made within the last 10 or so years, vintage are anything older than that. Very early light sets from pre-1910 times are extremely difficult to find and also very valuable so unfortunately as of yet I don`t have any. Most of my lights are post 1930s as these seem easiest to find. There is also the section for bulbs as mentioned above, but as well as that there will be a special section for one particular type of bulb- the bubble light. Bubble lights are unlike any other christmas light and when I saw them for the first time I was instantly hooked. They have an interesting history and there are a great many different styles avaliable. The bubble lights section will feature those types that I have, and also some specially made animations to let you see exactly what they look like in action. Photos on their own do not do enough to show these wonderful lights at their best. Lights Displays. I`m not only a collector of lights, but I also use them too (new ones only)- I enjoy putting up a large display of lights every year, well large by UK standards anyway. 1996 was the year of the first big display and each year since then it has grown and changed- never the same twice. Examples of my past "creations" including a full archive of last year`s popular christmas-lights webcam, will be featured in their own sub-category, and possibly in the future, hints and tips on creating your own lights displays will be featured too. |
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