Whence Christmas Lights on the roof?

Factual Questions
1

Ok, so I did my (admittely half-assed) search and got nothing. So What’s the deal with lighting up the outside of the house like that? If I remember right, the tree tradition comes from Germany and they like to tempt the fates by sticking candles among the inflammable branches of a murdered & drying evergreen, so let’s address that one too.

So, beides, “Because it looks way cool!”

  1. Why’d folks start sticking candles in (Christmas) trees?
  2. When & why did we start risking our lives by afixing lights to the eaves of our houses?
2

Why would you expect there to be any reason beyond that?

3

Dammit, I’m not going to let Johnson beat me again this year! Last time, I got only Rudolph, while that SOB put the entire sleigh team on his roof!

4

Some people just tend to go overboard:

http://dorjan.fotopages.com/?entry=296056