Cost of living crisis - Christmas lights ???

[diian]

Will there be any up this year?

Martin Lewis is going on about blackouts and using less energy between 4-10pm. Will there be fewer nodding reindeers and houses lit up this Christmas?

34p to have an oven on for an hour. The Christmas turkey will cost about £1 to cook... phew! Or shall we just go round to MILs!?

Just watching it too. I will still have my lights on! But might have them start half hour later and off half hour earlier. I am not even a massive Christmas fan but love how the window curtain lights make the house so much brighter for a month in the gloomy winter

I hope if we are seriously going to end up with blackouts and need to preserve electric that people are sensible and just have indoor decorations .

No one is taking my lights off me.
They cost pennies to run.

I have fairy lights up all year round but I use them rather than putting big lights on for just general wandering. I hope we don't get told to turn them off, they're really low energy and cost us very little for a few hours every night.

I use battery powered ones

Keeping your lights in for six hours a day for a month will cost approx 2.50£

I think it's the over the top outdoor lights that are the problem not the little ones on the tree. There are a few houses near here that cause traffic jams with people looking at the lights

Sadly there are Christmas lights up near me already. Strings of them in the garden. Strings over the window. Flashing. Defo Christmas lights not Halloween or anything. And so it begins….

I have a crappy oven and im pretty sure it costs more than 34p an hour - I used to have an app showing my daily energy use and Christmas Day is by far my highest consumption, I think because of the massive turkey. I don't really so outside lights, but I will be getting a smaller turkey. The people near us who do lots of outside lights are people who can easily afford them, so I don't think there will be fewer around here.

Christmas lights or maybe lights for Diwali ?

Great to know what the next public blaming and shaming is going to be. Yeah we should definitely judge those with Christmas lights on and tut at their wastefulness. Never mine the politicians, the energy companies, the big corporations that have got us into these dire straits. FFS

I'll be putting mine up as usual. I dont do loads and they are all leds on a timer. Hardly a massive drain.

its heating, not lighting, that costs.

Why would we have blackouts?

It's not running the lights that will take much energy (well unless you have one of those displays that people do drive bys to see) but it's the ridiculous excessive consumerism every Christmas that is environmentally unsustainable. I don't care if people put up lights they already have, just stop buying new stuff every year. Some people change their Christmas theme each year. It's just insane.

I have plain, nonflashy icicle lifts on the gables .I will run them unless we' get regular power cuts in which case, I guess I'll have to switch them off. I'll try to find some solar chargeable ones.

My lights will be going up. It
Feels
Like a competitive race to the bottom to see who can have most miserable Christmas.

LED Christmas lights cost hardly anything to run. I’ll have mine up inside and out I also won’t shame anyone doing the same, we need to be bashing the government not anyone else.

@Elieza they are probably Diwali lights. Lots of houses here (ok I am in Australia) put their lights up for it then leave them up until after Christmas. Two birds one stone etc.

Led so yes they're going to be on.

I really appreciate people who go to the effort of lighting up their front gardens for Christmas, it's lovely spotting them and pointing them out to the kids. One of life's small joys (unless they are flashing blue ones that make you panic)

I dunno about where you are but it’s only the posh houses that have them anyway here

I dunno about where you are but it’s only the posh houses that have them anyway here

Round here, it’s definitely not the posh houses.

🤣

Check the wattage of your lights, LED cost virtually nothing, older ones will cost a lot more to run. My beautiful gold wire cluster lights only take 4w, so I can run them for 250 hours for 1kWh of electricity.