the discussion of when there first were outdoor trees with electric lights is very strange are you kidding and some obscure town in nc i don't think this makes much sense especially since the sentences immediately preceding these establish that other cities had electrically lighted outdoor christmas trees in the early years of the th century the article cited for the north carolina town if read carefully really only states that the tradition of having outdoor lighted trees in that specific town began in not that the town claims it was the first place to have such trees i am old enough to have been around in though i was a small boy and i can tell you that we and our neighbors in southern california had lighted outdoor trees prior to and no one thought it remarkable or unusual the history here is questionable to say the least