BRAGGING RIGHTS TO LIGHTS CONTEST

Thanksgiving in our house means the start of the holiday season like it or not. Out come the lights, up goes the tree and anytime there is music playing, you guessed it;  All Your Christmas Favorites, Over and Over and Over again. By the time New Years rolls around I am pretty much ready to slit my wrists!

Of course I’m kidding! (not about the music though)  I love the decorations and the lights but year after year I bust out my old strings, untangle them and see whats working and whats not. The age old question popped up again a couple of weeks back when the “Clark Griswold” Holiday Lighting Contest idea ended up at more doorstep.

So as I’m pondering another year of dusty old boxes from the attic, I grab a bottle of wine and head off to my domain, my shopping paradise in my favorite PJs. AMAZON.com.  This year I am going to chuck the old lights  and upgrade to some new 21st Century LED holiday lights! The wife will be so proud.   I did a little research on LEDs and found a few tips that I thought made sense.

6 Tips to help you decide

which is right for you.

  1.  LED Holiday Lights Save You Money.

LED lights use up to 90% less energy than traditional holiday lights, according to the U.S. government’s Energy Star program.

That results in a $50 energy savings for the average family during the holidays, says a Sierra Club spokesperson.

Put it into perspective: The amount of electricity consumed by one 7-watt incandescent bulb (in a light string) could power 140 LEDs — enough to light two 24-foot strings, says Energy Star.

  1. LED Lights Cost More Than

Old-Fashioned Holiday Lights.

100-bulb string of LED lights: about $10 and up

100-bulb string of conventional lights: about $5-$7

  1. LED Holiday Lights Last and Last.

LED bulbs can keep your season bright for as long as 100,000 hours, says Cathy Choi, president of Moonachie, N.J.-based Bulbrite, which manufactures LED and regular bulbs. That’s substantially longer than the life of your old holiday light strings.

  1. You Can String a BIG Strand of LED Lights.

Safety wise, you shouldn’t connect more than three traditional light strings, but you can connect at least 10 with LEDs and up to 87 in some cases, totaling a whopping 1,500 feet, Choi says. So blow your neighbor’s display away by cocooning your house in lights:

You won’t have to buy as many extension cords.

You can take your holiday lighting display further away from the outlet.  Contest Winner!

  1. LED Lights Reduce the Risk of Fire.

They stay cooler than incandescent bulbs, according to Energy Star.

  1. How About That Hue?

Some people stick with their old lights because they don’t like the brighter hue that white LED holiday lights emit.   Colored and color-changing LED holiday lights are more vibrant than conventional lights, making your display easier to see from the street, according to Choi.  

So I finished my research about halfway into this bottle of red and in walks my wife with a box of new LED lights. SNAP….proud moment foiled!  She had been eyeing up lights for weeks down at Country Ace in Granby where they have a big selection and a display zone so you can see just what you are getting.  Of course she had, I forgot to mention, on February first we start the Christmas count down!

Oh well, hope the tips help you.

 

“ANNUAL BRAGGING

RIGHTS TO LIGHTS”

General Event Information

Holiday Light Contest will have two categories –

residential and business and be open to homes and businesses throughout Grand County.  

Complete event details and rules can be found on the Official Contest Facebook Page.

FACEBOOK/Granby Ace Hardware

Basic Rules: Take a picture, upload to Contest Page and get your friends to vote. Most votes in each category wins.

Contest starts now and will run  through December 15th.

Homeowners and business owners can submit their entries via a Facebook contest page by uploading photos or video clips with an option to include their address or not.  People can go onto the page and “like” the decorating that they feel is the best.  The home and business with the most “likes” wins.  Simple Right?

If you are like Clark Griswolds in Christmas Vacation there should be nothing to it. You just need to get a few good pics and hit your friends up for some votes.  Good Luck with that.

Prize for the winning residence will be a $300 gift certificate for Country Ace Hardware and prize for winning business will be two quarter page ads in the Winter Park Times.

The Annual  Bragging Rights to Lights  Holiday Lighting Contest is sponsored by:

Mountain Parks Electric

Country Ace Hardware

and the Winter Park Times.