If you have Outdoor Christmas Lights - where the hell do you plug them in?

[CointreauVersial]

Every year I say to DH "we must get some of those lovely icicle lights on the front of the house". But every year I'm defeated by the whole issue of how to power the damned things.

We live in a bungalow, none of the windows can be left open for a cable (any anyway, surely it would be draping unattractively across a room, even if we did do this). We have an outdoor socket, but it's miles away in the back garden, and all of the lights I've seen say that the transformer needs to be plugged in indoors anyway. No porch, garage, shed or similar.

Do you have holes drilled though your roofs, or something?

Ours goes in the bedroom window - the cables are really thin so the windows shut fine:)

We've got a small set with batteries

The cables are pretty thin these days and can have the window closed on them and still work.

We feed ours in through a window and close it. Neither windows nor wires are damaged. I plug them into the closest socket to the window, hiding wires behind curtains.

Outdoor plug socket on the front of the house hidden by a bush.

DP drilled a hole from inside to outside & took the plug off to thread the cable through. The power is constantly outside in a waterproof box like this... handy for the jet wash too!

Loulou - we do have one of those socket thingies - but it's miles away in the back garden - too far away for lights at the front.

That's really interesting what you say about thin cables......maybe I can shut them in the windows after all? The rooms at the front are the DDs' bedrooms.

Just did an experiment with DD2's fairy lights....the window shut beautifully with the cable through it! I can't believe this didn't occur to me; I just thought it wouldn't fit.

Thanks MNers! Off to B&Q I go.

We've wired ours up to next doors meter.

HTH

:o

We've got a set of outdoor lights that have 500 icicle style bulbs and are battery powered. We've had them a couple of years now and not had to replace the batteries. They were £49.99 from our local garden centre

Nice thought, Mycat.

I always thought battery lights would be feeble and underpowered, and you'd be replacing batteries every three days. Shows what I know.

No they're pretty good and on a timer so it's no hassle - only have to turn them on once. A Range purchase.

My lights are solar and battery. (Different sets)

I've seen a few on here advising to feed through slightly opened windows - please be careful with this!

To be fair, I think most were saying that they were able to close their windows, presumably so they're fully latched and locked, with the cable in them.

We have an outside socket for the lazy spa so run an outside extension lead off that. The socket was only £75 fitted if I remember rightly

we have outdoor sockets fitted

Same as above, outdoor socket at front but I have party bulbs at the back that come in through the window and it’s closed on the cable. They come on & switch themselves off every night on a timer.

I have both battery and sockets ones. The battery ones are so much easier. Batteries last all Christmas and as they are in a timer, I can forget about them. Nice to come home from work and they are in to greet us.

Had electricians put outdoor plug sockets at the front and back of the house. Handy for a multitude of things, including Christmas lights.

Another vote for battery/timer ones here, although ours did pack up last year after about 5 years of use (rain got into the battery compartment)

Yeah like others we feed the cable through the window and the windows close fine, the ones around the front door the cable is fed through the letter box and plugged into the sockets in the hall. If your sockets are far away in a room you can use an extension lead, we use one with the red buttons on them, can't remember the name but they're especially recommended for the use of these lights and for when you're using water and electricity. Any trailing cables are stuck with sellotape on windows and walls 🤣

Oh jesus how did I post on a zombie 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 who dragged this one up

Hi we are sellers of outdoor and indoor christmas lights and our customers use them in various places. The most popular ones are bedrooms, hall, kitchen and dining room.
During occasions such as Christmas, our lights are extensively used.
Try these places to light up your home :-)

Doesn’t really matter @Thethreecs it’s a useful thread for the time of year!