Christmas lights

[FourChimneys]

Yes, yes, I know it's early yet but I was discussing this with a friend today.

With the huge increases in energy, are people going to decorate the outside of their houses as much this year? Will lights go up later, be switched on for fewer hours, or not go up at all? What are you doing?

Seeing the lights is one of my favourite things about midwinter.

I moved to a new house last summer and didn't get chance to decorate outside at Christmas, this Christmas I'm looking forward to going to get outside lights etc 😄

I really don't know what to do I'm seriously thinking of stripping right back this year 😭

I'm going to plug them in for a while before I go to the bother of hanging them and see what it does to my smart meter!!

We are. We're pretty much the only one in the neighbourhood that does, and it's funny how many neighbours thanked us for doing them, especially the ones with littlies!

It's going to be a cold, dark, winter. I put them on for my girls and the other kids, as they come home from school. . .

We just bought outdoor solar fairy lights in the sale. Thatll do nicely :) they're v pretty!

Didn't have Christmas in mind when we bought them but I'll move them out to the front porch in December. If its too gloomy for them to work then nevermind! I'll make paper snowflakes for the front window with DS.

I like the idea of trying them with a smart meter first. I have some battery operated lights so might use those.

My DC used to love making paper snowflakes, perhaps that's the way forward!

I'd hope this is one area where we can reduce energy consumption with little impact. Outside trees can be decorated without lights.

balalake I do agree that trees can be decorated, but a few lights look pretty on dark evenings too. It's quite a difficult issue (albeit a first world one!) as they can bring cheer but also use energy. It would be interesting to see how well solar powered ones work in December.

Hi OP

We're just moving this over to the Christmas topic.

Good point!

Ours are modern led , would they be that much!

Ours are LED, they only go on for a hours in the evening. I really hope they don’t use a lot of power as I love seeing them on in December.

I looked at my electricity usage for the last 2 years or so...really steady for 10 months of the year then it shoots up Dec and Jan...I presume it must be the lights. We don't even have loads. 1 tree and a tiny outside set.
They are however all quite old...would it be worth buying led Xmas lights? Is that a thing?
Hate to think of not having any

Could it be that they’re the 2 darkest months anyway @ToooOldForThis ?

Ooh, OP! You have raised my hopes that this year my neighbours from hell will NOT plaster their entire house and garden with hideous randomly flashing chaser lights, visible from space shining into my damn bedroom around the curtain edges…

@Muchtoomuchtodo I live in Scotland, it's grim, dark and cold here from about end of September onwards. Certainly nothing much to distinguish our behaviour between eg nov/dec/jan/Feb...apart from the Xmas period.

We spend £200 on new lights last year and never bothered to take them down so they're still ready to be switched on. Hoping they won't cost too much as they're LED but I'll be using them regardless. Might put them on a timer this year so they're not on all night.

I’m going to look at getting some solar lights, but my usual lights will go on for a shorter time.

I'm getting solar to decorate the porch, instead are all LED and don't cost much to run

To be honest a few fairy lights takes very little energy and you can always use battery lights with a timer

A friends mum has decided not to have lights this year as it might be a beacon for burglars thinking that they must be well off as they can afford the electricity bill. It's a bit extreme but I sort of get where she's coming from.

We use the tree lights instead of lamps on an evening. Outdoor lights we will still use but maybe for less hours. We have a toddler who will love the lights this year and we hope its still magical for them.

We have a couple of battery powered sets. So the cost is 4 AA batteries. Probably not helpful if you want to illuminate the whole front of your house though.

LittleLottle I agree about making it magical for toddlers. We used to light the stairs and along the corridor to our DCs bedrooms and they loved it.

We had a mix of solar and mains ones last year , not a huge amount , just around the trees rather than the house. The solar ones didn’t get enough light to come on a lot of days , and when they did it would only be for an hour or so . We are in the South , so cloudy days in December with a bit of breakthrough sun . Had them up from December 1st , but might turn them on later this year . Also the mains ones I normally pop on in the morning when I get up , until the sun rises , but obviously no morning lights with the solar ones .

Battery ones , I assume would need frequent battery changes , and definitely a timer of some sort , as I would refuse to pop round the garden in the winter switching them on and off !

I'll still have mine on. We don't have loads up anyway, so can't see it making a huge difference to the bills.