STRING LIGHTS

While they might be a hassle to get untangled, prior to their release, people would decorate their trees with live candles. As you can imagine, this was actually pretty dangerous, so Edward Johnson sought to create a safer alternative. Johnson, the protégé of Thomas Edison, debuted his electric Christmas lights to the public in the late 1800s and the tradition of wrestling with them each year has persisted ever since.

GIFT CARDS

These popular stocking stuffers and gifts from relatives you don’t really speak with first debuted in 1998. Nancy Gensburg and Carol Jacobsohn of Swift Gifts in Illinois combined the magic of modern credit cards with store-specific gift certificates and gift cards were born. They were an instant hit and now most retailers have some version of a gift card.

YULE LOGS

Few people burn actual yule logs anymore. The tradition started as a pagan ritual to celebrate the winter solstice, usually burning pine, birch, oak, or aspen (with each type of wood having a different meaning). The modern equivalent is the yule log cake or “Buche de Noel.”  A chocolate sponge cake is rolled around cream and decorated to look like a traditional yule log. It was first created by a French pastry chef in the late 1880s.

THE DREIDEL

Before becoming the game of choice at Hanukah gatherings, the dreidel started as a top popular in Germany during Christmastime. The Jewish community soon adopted the toy, changing the letters on the top from German to Yiddish. Some stories also suggest that they were used as a cover-up after illegally reading the Torah while hiding from the Seleucids.

CANDY CANES

White sugar candy sticks were popular treats, but in 1670 the choirmaster at Cologne Cathedral decided to bend them to look like shepherd’s crooks. They were handed out to children to keep them quiet during services. It wasn’t until the 1900s that the peppermint flavor and iconic red stripes were added, making them the wintertime snack we all know and love.

GREETING CARDS

Surprisingly, Hallmark had nothing to do with the first Christmas card, although they did help popularize them years later. The first card was designed in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole and his friend, artist John Horsley. The inscription was a simple “A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You.” Believe it or not, the card was actually quite controversial because it included an image of a child being given a glass of wine. But one controversial card didn’t stop this fad. Today, thanks to sites like Shutterfly, many families send out personalize cards with family photos so you can see just how much everyone has grown in the last year.

WRAPPING PAPER

We have Hallmark to thank for wrapping paper, naturally. People traditionally wrapped their presents in fabric or plain papers, but the Kansas City, Missouri Hall Brothers store ran out of the latter one day in 1917. They started offering patterned envelope liners as an alternative. Shoppers loved it and gift wrap hasn’t been the same since. Today, you can find gift wrap decorated with everything from donuts to dinosaurs, and it’s become an art to match the gift wrap with the receiver’s personality.

ARTIFICIAL CHRISTMAS TREES

While going out as a family to pick out the perfect Christmas tree is considered iconic, nowadays many pull the artificial one from the basement. Early artificial trees were made in Germany out of wire covered in green-dyed feathers. In the 1930s, the plastic tree most are familiar with was introduced by Addis, a toilet brush company and the first trees were made out of, you guessed it–toilet brush bristles. We’ve come a long way since then and now you can get trees pre-lit, snow covered and in all colors of the rainbow.

The post Invention Spotlight: Holiday Inventions appeared first on Inventionland.

Frank Epperson: Popsicle

Eleven-year-old Frank Epperson invented what we’ve come to know as a popsicle. It was a winter’s eve in 1905 when Frank decided to mix a frozen concoction containing soda water powder and water. He accidentally left the drink outside overnight, with the stirring stick in the glass. The mixture froze solid and the first popsicle was born.

Though this was where it began, the treat didn’t gain notoriety until 1922 when Epperson gave it out at a fireman’s ball. He originally patented the idea under, “Eppsicle,” but changed it after his children started calling it a “popsicle.” So, funnily enough, kids came up with both the idea and the name.

George Nissen: Trampoline

George invented the trampoline in 1930 at the age of 16. He came up with the idea after seeing trapeze artists drop into a net at the end of their performance. He thought the act would be more exciting if they kept bouncing around so he began working in his parent’s garage. The original invention had a metal frame and a canvas stretched over it, but as he got older he perfected the design with a nylon canvas, giving it more bounce.

Louis Braille: Braille

Louis caught a severe eye infection when he was three years old which rendered him blind. For years he struggled to trace his finger over raised letters and had a lot of difficulty with it. When he was twelve, he learned of a method of silent communication used by the French military. He simplified that process, and suddenly he was able to read a whole lot easier. He first presented his work in 1924. Today, Braille is used by the blind community worldwide.

Albert Sadacca: Christmas Lights

Prior to electric Christmas lights, people would simply use candles to decorate their Christmas trees. Believe it or not, people initially had more difficulty trusting the safety of electric lights than open flames. Nevertheless, public trust started to sway toward the electric lights, but they were ridiculously high priced. That is until Albert came along and invented a version of electric lights that were much more affordable. He used his parents’ novelty lighting company to produce them in 1925 and now, because of him, they’ve become a staple of Christmas tradition.

Chester Greenwood: Earmuffs

It was 1873 and Chester Greenwood was just 15 years old when his ears got painfully cold one day while ice skating. He found that wrapping a scarf around his head didn’t help much, so he decided to find a better solution. Greenwood designed a wire frame and had his grandmother to sew beaver skins to it–thereby making the first pair of earmuffs. He ended up patenting the invention by age 19 and even selling them to soldiers during the first World War.

Joseph-Armand Bombardier: Snowmobile

Joseph was was always interested in mechanics and in 1922, at the young age of 15, he invented the snowmobile. According to Mental Floss, “He mounted the engine of a Ford Model T to four runners, with a handmade propeller perched on the back.” The original model of the invention traveled half a mile across the snow before finally stopping. He continued to tinker with the invention and by 1959 he had created the Ski-Doo AKA the world’s first ultralight snowmobile model.

Ben Franklin: Swim Flippers

We typically know Ben Franklin for his later-in-life accomplishments, but did you know he was actually a child inventor? In the early 1700s, at age 11, he realized he could cut through the water more easily while swimming if he had more surface area through which to push. His original design was handheld fins made out of oval-shaped planks with holes in the middle for his hands and feet.

Abbey Fleck: Makin’ Bacon

Abbey was 8 years old when she noticed her parents struggle with soaking up bacon fat after cooking. She realized that it might be easier to hang bacon while it cooks- that way you wouldn’t need paper towels and it would even make the bacon healthier. She then worked with her father to design a microwave-safe dish that hangs bacon while it cooks. They patented her idea in 1993 and landed a distribution deal with Walmart the following year.

KK Gregory: Wristies

At age 10, KK Gregory was playing outside one day in the cold. Her wrists began to hurt from the cold so she decided to find a way to keep both her hands and wrists warm during the winter. In 1994, she invented Wristies: fuzzy sleeves that can be worn underneath gloves to protect your wrists from the cold. She worked with her Mom to get the idea off the ground and now the product is sold worldwide.

Kelly Reinhart: T-Pak

When Kelly Reinhart was just a child, her parents challenged her and her siblings to a fun game. They were to draw up a picture of an invention and the prize for the winner was to have a prototype made. Thinking of cowboy gun holsters, Kelly drew a thigh pack that would allow kids to carry around their video games. Kelly and her family went through a few rounds of design improvements and officially got the idea patented in 1998. Interest in the idea grew quickly until Kelly sold her company at age nine. She eventually went on to start a non-profit organization to teach kids how to be inventors.

The post Ten Kid Inventors Who Changed Our Lives appeared first on Inventionland.