Choosing Christmas Lights

Christmas isn’t Christmas without lots of lights and as another miserable winter is before us your Christmas lights will cheer you, your visitors and your neighbours up.

Modern Christmas lights are illuminated using LEDs. LED stands for light emitting diodes and use very little power. LED lights last for between 30,000 & 50,000 hours. Who knows how many Christmases that is. The big advantage is you NEVER NEED TO FIND A FAILED BULB EVER AGAIN.

Failure of a set is more likely to be caused by wiring failure. to avoid this wrap your lights carefully for storage. Try wrapping your lights on a storage reel between Christmases to reduce stretching of the connections.

A 500 LED light set will cost under 5p a day and be well under £2-3 for the whole of Christmas. 

Choosing Christmas lights is straightforward when you know what you want to achieve. Many light sets can be used inside and outside so you can vary your decorating every year.

Types of Christmas Lights:

Plastic coated cable lights –

You will recognise this look from the many years we’ve had Christmas lights on a wire. The dark colour either Black or Green ‘disappears’ into your trees foliage. Available as plug in & battery operated. These are called seasonal light sets and intended for a short period of time such as Christmas. The PVC wire coating will deteriorate with prolonged exposure to sunlight.

Clear coated fine wires –

These wires are usually silver but occasionally golden. They are stiff wires and can be ‘moulded’ into shape for various decorating uses. The LED bulbs are moulded into the wires. Available as plug in and battery operated. Some battery operated versions are indoor only.

‘Festoon’ Lights

The traditional outdoor party look is now available in LED for too but look like the old candescent light bulbs. These are available with PVC coated wires (which are cheaper) with rubber coated cables for all year round use.

Styles

Sets of lights on cables have bulbs spaced along the cable 4-6″ apart. Compact lights have the LEDs much closer on short stems and Cluster lights are even closer on short stem to look like a garland.

Sets of Christmas lights are traditionally a long pair of wires with a plug on one end. 

Increasingly light sets are available in bunches. They are ideal for decorating the outside of a Christmas tree. These are separate wires of light all joined together at one end so that they form a frame like the frame of an umbrella. 

They are also ideal for garlands.