One of the things that our family looks forward to every year is decorating for the holidays. Before we had children, we were some of those crazy people who put up their Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. I look back at that now and think that may have been a little extreme. However, there is a lot of time and energy involved in setting up holiday decorations, so we wanted to be able to enjoy them for more than 2 – 3 weeks per year. Now that we have children, we typically put up our decorations the first weekend in December. Our oldest son’s birthday is at the beginning of the month and we decided when he was born that we didn’t want to confuse him between his birthday and Christmas. So as soon as his birthday is over, the artificial tree comes up, along with all the other indoor and outdoor decorations.
I typically handle all of the outdoor illumination activities, while my wife coordinates the indoor decorating with some of my help. For years we have installed the outdoor white icicle lights that became popular several years ago. I personally believe that some people can go way overboard on outdoor Christmas decorations. At a certain point, over decorating becomes very tacky (like the picture above). I prefer the classy look of the white lights outside, although I do like colored lights as well.
While I really enjoy putting up outdoor holiday decorations, I always think about how much it is going to cost me running all these lights. I just can’t help it and it is part of who I am. My wife feels the same way. One year, we even considered not putting up any outdoor lights to save on our electric bill. Then our son asked us why we were the only house on our street without decorations up and we caved in and put up some lights. Since that time, we have always decided up front to put up outdoor decorations. The question then became – How long do we leave them on every night?
We already have made a non-frugal choice in our home by deciding to keep our front porch lights on every evening. Our neighborhood is new and the street lights have not been installed yet. It is extremely dark at night, so we decided several months ago to keep our lights on. After we started leaving them on all night, we made some changes and switched to CFL bulbs so that we could reduce our electric bill. We would never keep our Christmas lights running over night but I do notice that a lot of people actually do. I am not really sure why, but I am glad I don’t pay for their electric bill!
So once the lights go up, the debate begins between my wife and I about how long to keep them running. We use a timer that turns on at dusk automatically and runs for a set period of time. There are several increments of time available to choose including – 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours, dusk till dawn, and all. My wife prefers the 2 hour setting which we tried early on this year. They were coming on around 5:00 PM and turning off around 7:00 PM. That seemed way too early to come off and at times I wouldn’t even be home from work while they were still on! After a few days of that, I made an executive decision to switch to 4 hours. I think 9:00 PM is a fair time to turn them off. Most people are in their homes at that time and probably wouldn’t see your lights at that time anyway.
So now I am wondering how much this is going to cost us by adding 2 more hours to our electric bill every evening or 14 hours per week. I always have to break it down by numbers. I guess we will find out sometime in January how this all turns out!
On a side note, we are hoping to purchase some LED lights this year after Christmas (hopefully marked down) to save on energy. The lights we have now are about 8 years old and it is time to dispose of them. They actually still work and we will donate them or give them to someone, but I don’t think they are energy efficient anymore.
How long do you leave your holiday decorations on?
{ 3 trackbacks }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This year, my wife and I elected to only put Christmas lights on our tree. We are trying to sell our house and we figured it would be more appealing without hundreds of tiny lights flashing everywhere. This makes the answer pretty simple since we only keep the tree lights on when we are downstairs and can enjoy them. Otherwise, we turn them off.
Reply
We don’t have Christmas lights up (I grew up never having lights), but I’m sure it will change when the boys start asking for them
. But, I have a suggestion for your front porch light (when the neighborhood is not so new). We have a motion detector front porch light, so it’s available anytime we arrive home or if an unexpected visitor walks by. That way we don’t have to pay for lights all night, but we still have the safety.
Reply
Corrie – How old are your boys? I love the idea of putting up a motion detector! Thanks for the tip.
Dusty – I agree about selling the house without Christmas decor. Good luck selling your home, it is rough out there.
Reply
This is a nice blog and will be looking forward to read more from you.
Rose.
Reply