[instrumental] [gospel choir] Silent Night, Holy Night All is calm, All is bright [fast male hypnotic Westcoast rap] Putting up Christmas lights is a staple in our house My first move was going to a store where I had to wait to buy the lights behind a sale booth today we made it happen, and now It’s late in the night and as quite as a mouse And the timer on our outdoor lights is about to go out The decorations illuminate in a different way than streetlights pro ject Streetlights are pale and are lit year round And don’t provide the holiday cheer that Red and green and other colors do The Color wheel paints the town like a little child Finger paint arrayed in preparation for Christmas Day A bulb on a pole can light the way for vehicles to maneuver in night ways to see while we drive And make it easier for pedestrians With less shadows that fade But little lights on strands create Warmth in the center of our chest When we are able to take them out of our shed And array them on our wooden eves So we don’t forget That it’s a countdown to the days when Someone was born That has significance for this earth So much so that we base our calendars On our wall and our phones that we rest on our leg while we sit Thanks to the Gregorian calendar Who took their best guess Of the birth date of Jesus of Nazareth [gospel choir] Round yon virgin mother and child! Holy Infant so tender and mild, [fast male hypnotic Westcoast rap] The tradition of Christmas lights started in Germany In the 16 hundreds to 17 hundreds When German Lutherans Put lit candles on evergreen trees To represent Jesus as the light of the world And to symbolize the night sky when Christ was born Yeah it might have been dangerous With the trees catching fire But that’s besides the point I guess Then walks in Thomas Edison In 1880 Who hung the first known electric Christmas lights outside That burned bright As a publicity stunt By his lab on New Jersey Two years later an associate Hand wired red white and blue bulbs And put it on the first electric Christmas tree In New York where it was cold Newspapers called it a marvel And a few years later President Grover Cleveland had the first electrically lit White House Christmas tree At first only the rich could afford them even into the 19 twenties The post world war 2 suburban boom plus cheaper electricity and colorful bulbs later made it popular To hang the bulbs even though we already have lights on a pole on street corners And yeah later on you could see communities competing with each other To see who could light up their wooden eves and manicured lawns prettier Which might have been besides point from the values of the German Lutheran churches But even though most people aren’t thinking of the last 400 years of history when unraveling the cords The symbolism hasn’t disappeared Behind sale booths And neither has the meaning behind the faith And the truth That Jesus is the light of the world That came into the world’s darkness Putting up the lights is a public declaration as we do it every year That we are celebrating something big here [gospel choir] Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love's pure light Radiant beams from Thy holy face, With the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth, Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.
