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porkandham

What type of Christmas tree lights do you prefer?

last month

I very much prefer small, warm, white lights. We have an arificial tree at our lake house that seems to have an infinate number of light permutations (almost all bad!) We were there this weekend to take the boat out, listen to Christmas music, drink boozy hot chocolate, and look at the lights on the lake. I put up the tree but didn't decorate it beyond a tree skirt to hide the ugly stand. My college age boys thought it woukd be hilarious to set the tree to the most colorful, bright, flashing light pattern they could find and then hide the remote! It was actually pretty funny. They know me well.


So, what type of lights do you prefer?

Comments (28)

  • last month

    I prefer the lights with strings that don’t get tangled into a frustrating mess. I fear that they don’t exist.


    (It couldn’t possibly be my fault!)

    porkandham thanked nancy_in_venice_ca
  • last month

    For inside, warm, white LEDs. If you want something to realy show up outside, use cool, white LEDs. I have warm white LEDs on our door wreath because it was all I could find available without ordering a week or so ago when the original lights went out. You can barely see them.

    porkandham thanked OutsidePlaying
  • last month

    I’m part of the small warm white lights brigade, although I like bigger traditionally-shaped white lights and medium-sized round white lights in the right context. I like colored lights in principle, that is outdoors in some places and on other people’s trees 😬

    porkandham thanked Kswl
  • last month
    last modified: last month

    Inside and outside warm white holiday lights. Just like my preference for all lights in and outside my house. I especially love seeing people's outdoor holiday lights of dense warm-only white holiday lights, but enjoy all lighting displays; so festive and enjoyable on dark, cold nights.

    porkandham thanked Indigo Rose
  • last month

    Team Warm White No Flash/Twinkle.

    I don't care for multi-colored lights which can look a bit lurid. jmo

    porkandham thanked Bunny
  • last month

    Colored lights only.

    porkandham thanked cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
  • last month
    last modified: last month

    I only like incandescent lights for our decor, no matter the color. I dread when they’re no longer available. We have white inside and various colors outside — white ones on house (C7s, I think), green on shrubs, and red/green/white on other decor. Our little tree in our wagon outside has multi-colored lights.

    porkandham thanked Jilly
  • last month

    I love warm, white lights and if I could ever find strands with true random twinkle like the ones we had in the 1970's, I would buy them even though they would be incandescent.

    porkandham thanked Fun2BHere
  • last month

    I prefer white lights inside and on tree, colored lights outside. No blinking lights anywhere.

    porkandham thanked maddie260
  • last month

    Standard warm white lights, inside and out, for me. But I love walking my city at night and seeing all the festive lights.

    porkandham thanked Feathers11
  • last month

    Colored lightx all the way and not LEDs.

    i made the biggest mess of the lughts on the outside trees and also the Christmas tree. After this year, I am getting a pre-lit artificial tree, a small one.

    Ha ha about hiding the remote! Thats funny.


    porkandham thanked dedtired
  • last month

    We get a tree every year that we have to light ourselves. I am happy with warm white or colors equally. The last couple of years I have run a string of white close to the trunk, and colors to the outside, and I like the effect.

    Outside I also prefer warm light.

    Nancy, you remind me to air my annual Thank You to the member here who suggested coiling each string (like around my elbow), secure with a twist tie or a pipe cleaner/chenille stem, and storing in a gallon ziplok bag, then in the Lights storage box. No tangles.

    porkandham thanked bpath
  • last month

    @bpath


    Unfortunately I do the wrap around elbow thing, along with twisties, and still have problems. Much fewer than without this method, but the mini lights are still tangling with others in the coil as I try to spread the line out.


    Could very well be a user problem.

    porkandham thanked nancy_in_venice_ca
  • last month

    I used all mini multicolored lights this year for indoors. I'm not messing with outside this year. If I did, it would be multicolored mini LED lights. I don't like the LED for inside, they are too bright. For outside, I want BRIGHT.

    porkandham thanked arkansas girl
  • last month

    When downtowns started putting up white lights just for the year round ambiance, the debate over Christmas lights ended for me. White means industrial colored lights are Christmas.

    porkandham thanked arcy_gw
  • last month

    Warm white lights.


    We bought them on a ring, like a garden hose. No more tangles.

    porkandham thanked mtnrdredux_gw
  • last month
    last modified: last month

    I like warm white but, my goodness, it still seems like there are a gazillion versions of them.
    We have one very long strand on a plastic cable spool, like Mtn, which is super easy to manage. Then we have about 10 other strands, all "warm" white, that don't match each other!
    I wish I had purchased two or three more sets of the ones on the spool. IIRC, they were on a super sale after Christmas.

    porkandham thanked deegw
  • last month

    I like small multi-color lights without orange. When I last bought lights for my tree I had strands of all blue and strands of red, white and green - perfection for me. I now have them on my mantle and above the cabinetry in our TV room as I've been treeless since I got the kitten.

    porkandham thanked 3katz4me
  • last month
    last modified: last month

    One year, at our first house, my scheme outside was amber, red, and green incandescent lights (small bulbs). It was beautiful. Strangers driving down our street would stop me if I was outside, to compliment the lights. I wrapped shrubs with them, tree trunks and bottom branches, front door garland, wreaths, etc. It was a lot of work because each color was a separate strand. Three times the amount of stringing them up. :)

    I’ve not been able to find that perfect amber color again, more a very warm and subtle gold than orange toned. It was so soft and pretty.

    porkandham thanked Jilly
  • last month

    Warm white light inside on tree. Colored lights outside depending how I feel that year. I have done both. Love a change up! This year it’s colored lights outside side and it looks so festive. No blinking lights ever. Not my thing.

    porkandham thanked njmomma
  • last month

    I like the Christmas colored lights on other peoples homes but not on my own. My inside lights are all white, both warm and cool depending on the room. Outside is all white icicles. DH was struggling with the outside lights this year and I ordered new - gasping at the price. The day I was expecting them to arrive I received a notice they were out stock. It inspired him to invest a little more time in them and he got them all working. On at dusk and off at daylight reliably every day since 😂

    porkandham thanked morz8 - Washington Coast
  • last month

    Nothing that blinks fast. Not cold white

    Warm white or colored.

    porkandham thanked palimpsest
  • last month

    Years ago I drove by the loveliest house lights. On the foundation shrubs, green lights with a smattering of single slightly larger red balls, evoking holly and berries. On thesoffits, warm white icicles. and above those, maybe it was on the roof, blue lights with interspersed white, like a nighttime sky. And one evergreen tree in the yard, with colored lights, It was so pretty.

    porkandham thanked bpath
  • last month

    I go back and forth. One year I love the coloured and the next plain warm white. This year, I've just put on the coloured, went for my evening walk and spied someone's tree in a window with warm white and now I want to change (but probably won't out of laziness).


    Sort of related, last year, I bought the wicker tree bottom round thingy because I absolutely loved the look. Well, I found it to be a huge PITA. It took up a lot of space and I found it hard to water the tree and ended up with water on the hardwoods and permanently staining them. This year it is hanging in the back porch and I'm trying to decide if I should sell it or find another use for it.

    porkandham thanked daisychain011
  • last month

    @jakabedy, 100% agree with you on that.

    I worked for several years with a group that decorated a tree at the annual Tinsel Trail in the city park. There are probably over 100 trees now. We learned quickly that the warm lights don’t show as well outdoors at night as well as the cool lights. Warm lights would have worked only if everyone was using warm lights.

    porkandham thanked OutsidePlaying
  • last month

    Tree inside is led colored. No lights outside.

    porkandham thanked Sherry8aNorthAL
  • last month

    I saw some combined warm and cool white on an outside tree a while back. I kind of liked it - looked like gold and silver - a little than the ubiquitous white lights.

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