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Between 1999 and 2003, Bill Nelson recorded and illustrated the history of these lamps and the businesses behind them in the "Old Christmas Lights" web page. When Bill died, his brother George took over and reformatted much of Bill's content into his "Antique Christmas Lights Museum" web site.
What was most remarkable is how useful the sites were to collectors, considering that neither brother was a webmaster by profession, and they used web development software and photo editing tools that have long since been discontinued, as well as early digital cameras with 1 or 2 meg of memory.
Unfortunately, when George became critically ill, there was no one left to keep the site going or even to keep reregistering the domain names. Consequently, the last iteration of the last site unexpectedly shut down in early 2010. The original URL was taken over by a "squatter" selling unrelated merchandise, and all of the brothers' work was purged from George's web server.
Recognizing the value of the Nelsons' work, the editors of Family Christmas Online™ immediately contacted the family to ask permission to restore the site for future collectors. To that end we have invested hundreds of hours rewriting code, reformatting photographs and otherwise restructuring things to make this material available to the widest possible audience.
Subsequently, readers and friends have sent us files to help us recreate the brothers' sites as they appeared at other times.
It may seem redundant to restore four different versions of what was more-or-less the same web site. However, both brothers' interests changed over time, so each version has unique features.
Note: The sites listed here are not archives in the sense of being direct, unedited copies of someone else's work. Each site is a restoration - the result of hundreds of hours spent tracking down missing files, as well as updating obsolete code, fixing broken links, and tweaking low-resolution photographs. For that reason, we request that you contact us before reusing large portions of this work. To reuse a few photos or lines of text, please provide the following credit:
If you have any comments, corrections, concerns, or questions about these pages, please contact us through our Contact page. We now return you to the site's content (or as much as we've been able to reload so far).
Please note that the site authors Bill and George Nelson collected and catalogued the lights and related products shown on these pages - they did not sell them, and we don't either. As George often said, "Thanks for stopping by."
Update for January, 2013 - After weeks of work, the 2006 version of George's site is now 99% restored. The few glitches that remain due to missing files are annoted on the affected pages. That said, if you're reading this after, say, February 1, 2013, and you are finding broken links, etc. please contact us, and we'll try to track it down.
> > > > ENTER THE 2008 SITE HERE < < < <
> > > > NEW FOR 2013! ENTER THE 2006 SITE HERE < < < <
> > > > ENTER THE 2003 SITE HERE < < < <
> > > > ENTER THE 2001 SITE HERE < < < <
Note: OldChristmasTreeLights™ and FamilyChristmasOnline™ are trademarks of Breakthrough Communications(tm) (www.btcomm.com).
For more information, please contact
us.
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