Let’s just put it right out there: Ohioans love their Christmas trees.
Now that Americans have started decorating their homes for the Christmas holiday, Ohio homes are filling up with the scent of Evergreen, Pine and Spruce and folks are digging into old boxes to find the ornaments that haven’t broken.
While, for some, putting up a Christmas tree means taking a boxed tree out of the attic, dusting it off, and hoping it’s held up better than Charlie Brown’s, others will be going to live tree farms to buy their holiday centerpiece.
How many folks are still doing this tradition? BetOhio.com took a break from brining you the best best Ohio sportsbook promos to rank the states based on their interest in bringing home a live Christmas tree.
When all the searches were calculated, out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, Ohio finished fourth in its love of live Christmas trees, behind only Delaware, New Hampshire and Louisiana.
Rounding out the Top 10 are West Virginia, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Alabama, Virginia, and the highest-ranked southwestern state, New Mexico.
How much do Ohioans love their Christmas trees? There’s even an Ohio Christmas Tree Association.
States Most/Least Interested in Real Christmas Trees
A Little History Lesson
So how did this Christmas tree trend get started? It might go back to the 1400s in Livonia (now Estonia and Latvia), but the credit usually goes to 16th century German Lutherans and Martin Luther, who allegedly added lighted candles to a tree before anyone could warn him what a fire hazard that was.
The candle tree was a popular tradition until the advent of the electric lights, no matter how many houses burned down thanks to the tradition.
The first string of electric lights was invented by, who else, Thomas Edison, in 1880. Edison hung the lights outside his laboratory during the Christmas season.
Two years later, Edison’s friend and business partner, Edward H. Johnson, took the next step, winding 80 hand-wired red, white and blue light bulbs around his Christmas tree. The tree was not only the first to have electric lights, it also revolved. Show-off.
Since people of Edison’s time didn’t much trust electricity, it would be another few decades before the bulb-lit Christmas tree would become popular. Let’s keep hanging burning candles on the tree, that seems like a good idea.
At the turn of the 20th century, General Electric started selling Christmas Tree light kits, but they were very expensive and not very popular – the rise in popularity of Christmas lights can be credited to a lighting company owned by Albert Sadacca and his family.
In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge lit the National Christmas Tree with over 3,000 electric lights.
Today, Christmas trees are big business. Americans spend over $2 billion on live trees each year and purchase around 150 million light sets.
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