LED Christmas lights popular this season

This is the time of the year when your inner Rudolph knickers for attention.

And why not?

The last two weeks of November are prime light-buying time. While Ace Hardware carries white and rope lights all year long for people to decorate their patios and homes, they gear up for Christmas early, too.
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"We stock Christmas lights in late August," says Cheri Haight, general manager of the four Nyberg Ace stores in Sioux Falls. "People start purchasing the week before Thanksgiving. They like to get their lights up outdoors before the weather turns really nasty."

Icicle lights, mini-lights, C-7 and C-9 lights appeal to traditionalists, but a careful look through the light aisles at hardware stores reveals a plethora of choices.

The biggest change in lights is the introduction of LED bulbs; people began buying them last year. LEDS are found in rope lights, pearl lights, lit up Christmas bulbs and even solar lights.

LED bulbs are energy-efficient and can burn 20,000 hours before a bulb will burn out, says Grant Weberg, owner of G&J All Season Lighting.

LED, or light emitting diodes, use about 7 percent of the power that incandescent bulbs do, says Rod Hunter, owner of Christmas Decor, a Sioux Falls lighting company.

The light runs cooler than older string lights. "They're cleaner, crisper more intense lights," Haight says. They're brighter, almost like a neon light.

Traditional Christmas colors of red, green and gold are back in vogue, after being displaced in recent years by hot pink and lime green.

Incandescents are cheaper to buy but more expensive to light.

For LED lights, the cost varies by color because different materials are used to create the different colors. White LEDs are the most expensive because red, green and blue are combined together to make a white LED, according to an LED Web site.

Thanksgiving weekend typically is busy for do-it-yourself light hangers. But Oct. 1 is the date professionals began putting up lights.

Whether you plan to do it yourself or hire it done, "Christmas lights are kind of an addiction," Hunter says.