The Christmas season evokes warm feelings of spending time with family, drinking delicious eggnog, shopping for and opening presents, and more. While it may seem like the Christmas decor section in stores gets more overwhelming each year, here are 5 holiday patents that are sure to bring joy this season.

Artificial Christmas Tree

Christmas trees fill our homes with a festive look during the holidays, but it wasn’t until the chopping down of those trees in Germany started seriously depleting the forest that artificial trees started to take over. The first artificial trees were made with goose feathers that were dyed green and attached to wire. Though innovative, this method wasn’t that durable, and eventually, a company that produced toilet cleaning brushes discovered a better way to make them. How? You guessed it… Toilet brush bristles. The artificial Christmas tree has gone through many clever incarnations since then, including a self-extinguishing tree and an aluminum tree, but most today are made with PVC. They also now come in different colors, covered in snow, pre-lit and decorated, or completely bare.

Christmas String Lights

In the old days, Christmas trees were decorated with real candles, but this posed a major fire hazard for trees. When Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, Christmas lights evolved to incorporate these lights, which were an upgrade from open candles. These lights still produced heat though, and caused trees to catch fire. Today, LED lights are a popular option for Christmas string lights, since they don’t produce heat and are much more energy efficient. Evolving technology has also allowed our Christmas trees to flash and change colors, bringing even greater spectacle to decorating our houses and trees for the season.

Tinsel Gun

Tinsel, especially the loose kind, can be a real hassle to work with. In 1970, a tinsel gun was invented that helped tree decorators get the job done in record time instead of painstakingly by hand. Today, this has likely spawned the DIY creation of a tinsel cannon, which is crafted with a PVC pipe and bicycle pump.

Building a Snowman (or Woman)

Yes, this is a real patent. While most may think that building a snowman is a universally known process, one man in the U.S. has received a patent for the process of building a snowman. The patent was filed in 2006 and was granted in 2011 and highlights a lightweight yet sturdy way to build a great snowman.

Elf on the Shelf

This Christmas tradition for children started in the early 2000’s and exploded into a cultural tradition. Elf on the Shelf is designed to teach children good behavior during the Christmas season, modeled by parents hiding the elf in different places each night when the elf flies to the North Pole to report on good and bad behavior. The next morning, the children search for the elf around the house. Elf on the Shelf has copyright protection and multiple trademarks and has even spawned multiple product offshoots, such as a musical and elf clothing line.

Have an idea for a Christmas invention that could entertain or revolutionize our already busy holiday season? Contact Global Patent Solutions today.