Christmas is here! What a better way to celebrate the season by taking the time to put up Christmas lights on the house and the front yard. This year, I started to put mine up a week after Thanksgiving. I started with six strings of 350 clear icicle lights, hanging off the roof. Later on, I added the colorful lights on the pathway, plus more clear lights on the hedge and palm tree. I’ve also added air blown Santa sleigh, with two reindeers, inflatable lighted display. The notable difference this year was the removal of the bobbing wire-frame reindeer lights. It was too difficult to store, so I donated it to Goodwill. The air blown Santa display was much easier to setup.
Some people in my neighborhood have gone “green” by using LED lights. LED lights are nice and all, but they’re just not as bright. I don’t know how much electricity I would save, but since I don’t turn them on all night, it’s a moot point converting to LED. Brighter displays make it look more festive, anyway.
Here are some of the photos from my neighborhood. Lately, they haven’t gone crazy with the lights as they did a few years ago. In fact, not many people put up a display. That’s too bad. Maybe when the economy is better next year, people will be more involved.
Building IT
Jot It Down
You’re crazy! (hehe)
I think LED lights are much brighter than the old school bulbs
fragileheart´s last blog post..Flickr Friday: I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas
For Christmas lights, they’re not much brighter. I made the comparisons with my neighbors’. It’s really dim in comparison. Regular bulbs are brighter.
But, I might change next year to LED for the hedges because it seems the regular bulbs trips the GFCI safeguard switch a lot. Hopefully then they’ll have much brighter versions.
hey Rudy,
Man, you go all out on Christmas lights… even the new-fangled blow up stuff! Very cool.
I used to use the icicle lights (and still love them) but this year switched to colored LED lights. I agree that as of last year the LEDs weren’t very good, but this year they’re better (at least in my opinion, but still not quite the same). We still have our two reindeer with the old-school white lights, and the inside Christmas tree still has our old lights (my wife says the inside LEDs don’t cut it for the tree), so we still spin the electric meter a bit, but not as much as you I think.
Some fellow 1st-grade parents and we took a group of kids caroling around the neighborhood last night (cold!), which was a first ever. I was impressed by how many people put up lights this year. Maybe it’s different in our neighborhood. I just glad that at least some people still put up lights.
Anyway, Merry Christmas Mr Griswald!
~ Steve, aka the Christmas-loving trade show display guru
PS. I love the Santa hat on your picture in the header!
Trade Show Guru´s last blog post..Top 3 Trade Show Display Design Mistakes
My Santa hat was photoshopped in. 🙂 It seemed like the popular thing to do with everyone on Twitter. Next time I’ll do a real hat.
Further down the road, there were houses that went all out. I haven’t had the time to take their photos. I think I’ll need to bring my tripod. I couldn’t keep still while taking these night shots.
[…] (well, expect maybe shopping for a Christmas gift). I love the smell of the Christmas tree, all the Christmas lights around the neighborhood, how excited our kids are about Santa coming, drinking eggnog, listening to […]
Very nice pictures of your yard decoration. I will start tomorrow with putting up the lights for this year. I decided to go for LEDs rather than regular bulbs, hope I won’t be disappointed, after I read now that you compared them with your neighbor’s and found them dim.
Wow, these pictures are great. looks like you did a lot of work! Are you doing the same thing this year, or have you added to your collection of outside lights?