Have Yourself and Environmental Little Christmas

Christmas is nearing, and most of us put up our Christmas trees and decorations right after Thanksgiving-- sometimes the day after! With the economy and environment at stake, we are all thinking about money and energy-saving ideas. With all the hustle and bustle of Christmas, it probably gets pushed aside. However, there is one suggestion for the Christmas season that will be pretty much effortless and will save both energy and money.

As opposed to the tangled, burned out, missing bulb mess of regular bulbs that you have to replace every year, my suggestion is to replace those with LED Christmas lights. Strands of these are usually a bit more pricey. However, it reduces energy use by 90%, which ends up saving you money (which is always a good thing, especially this time of year.) Also as money-saving kick, these don't need replacing every year, because they are not as fragile as regular Christmas lights.

These lights are also unique because they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. I've seen anywhere from little balls of light, to starbusrts of color, to little Christmas tree lights. The only thing that might bother some people about these lights, are the color. They do have the usual white, green, red, etc. However, they're not the twinkling colors we see in normal lights. The colors are more solid and saturated. If you ask me though, I've seen a tree with LED lights all over it, and it still looked spectacular.

Where, exactly, do you get these wonderful displays of light and environmental consciousness? Here are a few places I have found:

1. Target: This is the first place I ever saw LED Christmas lights, and fell in love with them. In-store, they always have a beautiful display of every variety of LED light they have, listing energy information on cards beneath them. You can order these lights online or pick them up in-store, along with your other Christmas items.

2. Holiday LEDs: This website allows you to shop by color and shape. They offer colors from the normal green and red, to more obscure orange and pink. By shape, in their novelty collection, they have fun shapes like snowflakes and stars. they even have beaded strands of LED lights!

3. Christmas Lights, Etc.: I offer up this website, not only because it has LED lights, but it also offers LED rope lights (common for outdoor use) and LED garland.

4. Environmental Lights: Taking a step further than Christmas Lights, Etc., this website offers LED lights, rope lights, light nets, garland, icicle strings, and more.

5. Wal-Mart: Finally, if you're a Christmas decoration purist, and you're looking to replace your artificial tree this year, with something that will last for years to come, Wal-Mart offers a somewhat pricey, yet study tree with LED lights already built in.

So, whether you're looking to save energy and money, or you just think they look cool, LED Christmas lights beat out regular old burn outs anyday.