It’s Christmas Lights Time Again
Christmas lights and Christmas lighting schemes can be mesmerizing. Back, in the 80s I can recall walking down the narrow streets of some Austrian town feeling like I had been transported to a Christmas fantasy land. Of course, the narrow cobble stone streets added to the magical effect but the heavy lifting was done by the Christmas lights.
There was a time in the recent past when Christmas was a little less sparkly than we’ve been used to seeing. During the days of the energy crisis, with the prevalence of inefficient strings of large bulb incandescent Christmas lights, people were a little more judicious with the lighting schemes they assembled. Personally I think it was a backlash against the strings of lights which took 5 hours to fix a single burnt out bulb.
Christmas lighting has undergone several innovative phases. The most common Christmas lights on the market these days are the small LED lights. With development and experimentation, LED lights can now be produced in mass quantities and that has resulted in increasingly low prices. These light weight strings of lights use only a small fraction of the energy required by the older lights. Therefore LED Christmas lights are cheap to buy and cheap to run.
The most common indoor decorating theme that has been used for years is the single or double strand of string lights that spiral up a staircase railing, intertwined with garland in the color you have chosen for your Christmas lighting theme. Equally as charming is a string of icicle lights affixed to the underside of the staircase railing. It is a little harder to secure this style of lighting, but it looks just as cute.
There has been a lot of creativity in the Christmas lights industry lately. Gone are the days when all Christmas lights came in strings, There are now Christmas balls made up of 100s of tiny LED lights. There are now wonderful Christmas stars that are also made from LED lights. The use of so many lights in one focal piece is shimmery and breathtaking.
Christmas lighting can be simple or it can be dramatic. Christmas lights displays can be expensive and extravagant or simple and modest. Every use of Christmas lighting works the magic of Christmas. It’s time to put up your Christmas lights.
To find out more about christmas lighting ideas go to christmas lights.
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