Bubble lights are the one Christmas light that makes grown adults stand still. A column of colored liquid, a bulb underneath, and after a few minutes a stream of tiny bubbles rising through the glass, over and over, all evening. They were on every tree in the 1940s and 50s, they faded when the mini light took over, and they never quite went away, which is why our bubble lights shelf gets the same look from a seventy-year-old and a seven-year-old. Here is how they work, where they came from, what we carry and how to use them without tears.
How Bubble Lights Work
Our category page puts it simply: each bulb sends a steady stream of tiny bubbles rising through a column of colored liquid, adding the gentle motion and warm glow that no ordinary string light can match. The mechanism is a small bulb at the base of a sealed glass vial. The bulb warms the liquid, the liquid boils at a very low temperature, and the vapor rises as bubbles. The liquid in bubble lights is almost always methylene chloride, which boils at about a hundred and three degrees Fahrenheit, roughly the temperature of a hot bath, so a small bulb is plenty. That is the whole trick, and it has not changed since the 1940s.
A Short History
1944 to 1946
The bubble light was patented in the United States by Carl W. Otis in 1944 and introduced in 1946 by NOMA, the big American Christmas light maker of the day. The timing was perfect: the war was over, families were buying for the first peacetime Christmases, and a light that moved was the most exciting thing on the tree. For the next thirty years, through the 1970s, bubble lights were a staple, until miniature fairy lights became the fashion and the bubblers went to the attic.
The Comeback
They came back the way the best things do, through nostalgia. Christopher Radko’s Shiny Brite line, the revival of the great mid-century American ornament brand, includes bubble lights in its Holiday Splendor colors, because no mid-century tree was complete without them. Our types of Christmas lights guide calls them a mid-century classic and notes that vintage-style sets and replacement bubble bulbs are still made today, which is more than most 1946 inventions can say.
The Bubble Lights We Carry
Strings for the Tree
The Radko Shiny Brite Holiday Splendor bubble lights are the tree set: seven lamps in a box, the Bubble Brites, which the page describes as adding a little nostalgia and a lot of color to the tree. Seven is not many, and that is the point. Bubble lights were never the whole tree; they were the accents, clipped upright on the outer branches where the motion catches the eye.
Candoliers for the Mantel
A candolier is the mantel version: a row of bubble lights standing in a base, the way candles stand in a candelabra. The Shiny Brite nine-count bubble light candolier is the one we carry, nine electric lamps in a row, and its page suggests setting it on a mantel surrounded by greenery, which is exactly right. It is the piece for the house with a modern tree and a soft spot for the fifties.
The Centerpiece
The holly berry bubble light centerpiece is the newest idea in the category: three bubble lights, each dressed with holly berries and greenery, on a gold base, with a nine-foot lead so it reaches an outlet from the middle of a table, a spare bubble light in the box, and an indoor-only plug. It is the bubble light designed for the table rather than the tree, and a natural gift for the person who already has everything for the tree.
Night Lights for the Hallway
The smallest bubble lights are the night lights, and they are the ones that get a child hooked. The red and green bubble night light is a plug-in base with a glass candle-style bulb filled with gold liquid that bubbles when it is on, with a replacement bulb in the box. A Christmas tree night light at seven inches puts a bubble lamp on top of a little tree, and a snowman at six and a half inches, ceramic and glass, holds a red, white and green bubble light in one hand and a present in the other. They keep a cozy glow going in the hallway long after the tree goes dark, as our page says, and they are the easiest way into the habit.
How to Use Bubble Lights
Keep Them Upright
A bubble light only bubbles when the vial stands straight up, because the bubbles have to rise through the column. The clip bases on tree sets are made to grip a branch and hold the lamp vertical; pick a firm branch near the outside of the tree, push the clip on well, and check the angle after the ornaments go on, since a bumped lamp that tilts will glow but not bubble.
Give Them a Few Minutes
They do not start bubbling the instant you plug them in. The bulb has to warm the liquid first, which takes a few minutes, sometimes longer in a cold room. If a lamp glows but sits still after ten minutes, a gentle tap on the base usually starts it; if it never bubbles, the bulb underneath is weak and the lamp wants replacing.
Mix, Do Not Match
Our category page gives the best advice in one line: bubble lights are at their best mixed in among traditional strands, where their motion draws the eye. Seven or nine bubblers scattered through a tree lit with warm white minis look like a memory. A tree of nothing but bubble lights looks like a science fair. Put the candolier on the mantel, the centerpiece on the table and the night light in the hall, and the house has motion in every room without a single strand being replaced. The rest of the tree’s lighting is covered in our Christmas lights collection.
Replacement Bulbs
The bubbling vial outlasts the bulb under it, so keep spares. The centerpiece and the night lights ship with one; for the sets, check our light bulbs and cords page, and keep the box the set came in, because bulb sizes vary by maker and the box is the easiest way to match one. A bubble light that glows without bubbling is almost always a bulb problem, not a vial problem.
Safety, Honestly
The liquid in a classic bubble light is methylene chloride, which the EPA describes as a volatile chemical used across industrial, commercial and consumer products, and which you do not want to handle. The vials are sealed and the quantity is tiny, and the lights have been sold for eighty years, but the rules are the same as for any glass thing that gets warm: do not let children or pets handle a lit lamp, do not break a vial, and if one does break, ventilate the room, keep hands and paws away, and dispose of the pieces rather than trying to save the lamp. The night lights and the centerpiece are indoor pieces, and we treat the sets the same way.
The Short Version
Bubble lights are a small bulb warming a sealed vial of liquid that boils at bath temperature, invented in 1944, sold from 1946 by NOMA, everywhere through the 1970s, and back on the shelf through Radko’s Shiny Brite line. We carry the seven-lamp tree set, a nine-lamp candolier for the mantel, a holly berry centerpiece for the table and bubble night lights for the hall. Keep them upright, give them a few minutes, mix a few into a tree of regular lights rather than building a tree out of them, keep spare bulbs, and never break a vial. The glow has not changed in eighty years, and it does not need to.
Frequently Asked Questions
Find It at St. Nick's
Add the motion: shop bubble lights for the tree, mantel, table and hallway, and finish the tree from our Christmas lights collection.
St. Nick’s Christmas and Collectibles has been Littleton, Colorado’s Christmas store since 1976. Shop online, visit us in person, or call 1-800-875-8865 with any questions.
