Brighten Your Holidays With LEDs

Drinking hot chocolate, building snowmen and decorating for the holidays are annual rituals many of us have each December. Although keeping those twinkling lights on throughout the night can make your house the star of your neighborhood, your wallet might not be as excited.

But there's no need to cancel your tree-trimming plans just yet. This season, try LED lights, an energy-efficient alternative to your normal holiday lights. LED lights produce light using the movement of electricity along the path of its semiconductor. As the electrons stream across the semiconductor, they create electromagnetic radiation, some of which takes the form of visible light.

In other words, LED holiday lights look just as pretty as the more commonly used incandescent lights. More importantly, though, they're a savvy choice for consumers looking to cut back on energy costs while keeping the holiday spirit alive. LED lights:

• Use 80 percent less energy than incandescent mini-lights;
• Last more than 50,000 hours;
• Keep you safer because they're virtually indestructible and stay cool, so they’re safe to the touch and less of a fire hazard;
• Are more safely strung end-to-end and don't overload a typical household’s electrical circuits; and
• Are easy to replace: if a bulb does burn out, the other bulbs will stay lit, so you can easily replace only the bad one.

If your office or local school normally gets in the holiday spirit, try swapping incandescent lights for LEDs there, too and spread the savings throughout your community. And if you really want to maximize your holiday lighting savings, use timers to limit light displays and — bonus! — lower energy costs and pollution.