Edward H. Johnson's 1881 creation was a marvel, but it remained a custom luxury for decades. When General Electric first sold pre-assembled light kits in 1903, a single string cost $12 – equivalent to over $400 today, making them a status symbol only for the wealthy. The tradition truly entered the mainstream in 1895 when President Grover Cleveland illuminated the White House tree with hundreds of electric lights, capturing public imagination. By the 1920s, the NOMA company's mass production of