Tips for Choosing Christmas Lights

What would Christmas be without family, food, and festive flourishes festooning the frosty facades of houses and businesses everywhere? It would probably not feel like the holidays at all. Carrying on the holiday traditions as the year comes to a close, however, takes a lot of thought and preparation. Undoubtedly, you’ll want to dress up your home and tree with lights that reflect your holiday merriment. We provide some tips for choosing Christmas lights to aid in your planning efforts.

Choose Between Incandescent and LED Lights

The initial decision you should make is whether you want incandescent or LED lights. Both types have their strengths and weaknesses, and you can always choose a combination of them for different areas and decorating purposes.

Incandescent lights generally provide visually and physically warmer light because they emit a broader spectrum of light wavelengths in their white glow. You can also select colored incandescent lights that have tinted bulbs to filter the light they give off.

LED lights may cost more, but they offer greater energy efficiency and last much longer than their incandescent counterparts; many can stay on around 50 times longer than average incandescent bulbs. There are also warm- and cool-glow versions available, and different colors are created by a change in internal material.

Determine What Types of Lights You Want

As you browse the different light bulb shapes and formations on the market, you may find there are multiple variants that serve just about every need imaginable. To help guide your search, here are some of the major categories:

• Mini Lights – The most recognizable of the holiday glimmerings that dot the December landscape, these lights resemble tiny flickers with their pointed bulbs. You can wrap them around trees, use them to line portions of wall, and decorate whatever else you can think of.
• Large Bulb Lights – Reminiscent of the nostalgic ornaments of decades past, large bulb lights can also cover a range of applications. They often come in two major types: strawberry shaped (C6, C7, C9) and round globe (G12, G25, G30, G40).
• Wide Angle Lights – This variety possesses a cylindrical plastic form with a concave, conical surface at the end that encloses a small bulb. Their brightness exceeds that of normal lights because of this idiosyncratic design. If you’re looking for something different, this may be the type to get.
• Rope Lights – Providing a smoother line of illumination, rope lights utilize clear PVC tubing to maximize bending and flexibility. They’re best for silhouetting doors and windows and spiraling around rails.
• Net Lights – For those who desire simplicity and speed in Christmas adornments, net lights offer an ideal solution. They’re perfect for draping over fixtures and shrubbery, and they guarantee even spacing between the individual light bulbs.

Plan for Your Desired Setup

Throughout the selection process, it’s important to picture how you will lay out the lights around the space you’ll deck out. What you plan to do with the lights can have a substantial influence on what you should choose and how many you should get.

Think about the availability of outlets and power strips in the location you have in mind. Are there several places to plug into? Do you need extensions cords to get the lights all the way to the trees in the front yard? If you have difficulties finding a power source (or you might teeter on the edge of shorting out your whole block) consider batteries as a substitute or supplement to an outlet.

Furthermore, figure out what components of the area you want covered and how much brightness you want to introduce. A lot of thin branches will probably benefit from mini lights or rope lights, while the roof may provide better support for large bulbs. Since you can pick how much space is in between the individual lights in a line, you can create more saturation with lights close together or more subtle gleams with lights separated farther apart.

No matter what atmosphere you want to pursue, our vast selection of commercial grade Christmas lightshere at Action Lighting will fulfill your creative decorating vision this coming season!