Sci-fi Christmas
I’m not a big fan of these new LED Christmas lights that are being so heavily marketed. The spectrum of light they emit is so … un-natural looking.
When I drive around and look at people’s outdoor Christmas decorations, there’s a stark contrast between these LED lights and the traditional incandescent type that I grew up with. The LED lights have an eerie glow to them – like the lights you’d expect to see on the control panel of a spacecraft in a sci-fi movie. Wonder what Jesus thinks of them.
I know that the LED lights have some advantages over the traditional type. According to Consumer Reports, they use about 33% less power, compared to incandescent lights, saving you up to ten bucks every 300 hours. (Wait, did I run my outdoor lights for that long last year? Ooooo, ten bucks – don’t spend it all in one place!) Yet they cost about the same as traditional lights.
They also have much longer life, with each bulb lasting more than 4,000 hours on average. What’s more, they run quite a bit cooler, which means they’re less likely to ignite your Christmas tree (that is, if you happen to use a real, cut tree, as opposed to one of those “sci-fi” ones made of “space age” material. Wonder if it’s Okay to replace the candles on a menorah with LEDs?)
But despite these claims, there have been quite a few complaints about these new-fangled lights. For one thing, the LEDs that are socketed sometimes corrode from the inside out because, in order to cut costs and make them cheaper, the manufacturers mix copper electrical wiring with the aluminum leads that come out of the bulbs themselves. This, of course, results in electrolysis – in other words, it causes them to rust from the inside out and stop working, often within two years. Not much you can do once that happens.
The other thing is that, unlike traditional lights, the LEDs tend to get dimmer as they get older – which results in inconsistencies if you’re using strands bought in different years. They’re also known to have inconsistent color: for example if you get blue strands, some of the bulbs might be blue-green while others might look purple. That’s because the manufacturers are trying to make the LED bulbs as cheaply as possible, so they can compete price-wise against traditional lights. In addition, a lot of people have complained that they don’t last as long as the manufacturer’s claim (plus there’s usually no warranty offered on these lights).
Call me a traditionalist – call me an old fogey – I just don’t want my house to look like a set from Close Encounters of the Third Kind when holiday time rolls around. I’m sure the day is coming when LED Christmas lights will be the only ones you can buy. But until that day comes, it’s traditional lights at the Barnard residence, all the way …
