Partner, Let me Upgrade U

New things are strange and mysterious, scary at times and not always an improvement. Case in point: LED Christmas Holiday Lights. I put up the white icicle lights up over the couch last night and it was like having a million tiny little Mag-Lites shining down on me. The incandescent lights gave off a twinkly glow that gave off an overall candlelight effect in the room while these are simply too bright and feel more blue-white than white, and they don’t twinkle. They gave off a glow that was not unlike turning on an old school fluorescent lamp, the kind with the hum. The light also doesn’t spread throughout the room the same way as standard bulbs, it sort of gently diffuses away, so these would not be considered winners.

The multi-color strand of LED lights looks amazing, though. The brightness makes a big difference, and I like that they’re cool to the touch — always hated getting burned by lights when you wanted to hang them while they were plugged in — I have no worries about damaging the paint on my faux fireplace when leaving them on all evening. They have a better light spread than the white lights, but it’s interesting using LEDs because when all the colors’ glows meet the far walls of the room, it just turns white. So I do miss the little droplets of color that hit the walls, but the reflective items in the room still grab bits of color from the lights themselves.

If I had an actual tree, I probably wouldn’t mind using one white and several multi-color strands on it for a nice look, and of course the energy savings would be nothing to sneeze at. But for creating a non-tree ambiance, stick to the colors for decorating and skip the white strands.