The Healthy Parenting Blog

“LED” the Way! A Green Christmas

Last year we started gradually changing over our incandescent christmas lights to the newer, and BETTER LED christmas lights.  This year, we’re just about done with only some white incandescent light wrapped garland that we use on our front porch left to change over.  We’ll be waiting until Christmas is over and all things Christmas go on sale to get the last of our LED lights. 

If you haven’t looked into LED, there’s a world of good in having them.  They burn tons less energy (TONS), last MUCH longer (200,000 hours compared to 2,000), do not heat up (fire risk), have no glass (its a nearly indestructible epoxy lens) and much more.

The colored mini lights are bright and cheerful.  The white lights take a little getting used to and you can not string them next to incandescent white as the glow is completely different.  But on their own, they are not bad at all.  We bought ours for a deal at Costco but if you want to learn everything there is to know about LED Christmas lights, I have the site for you!

Get with Green’s; Holiday Lights - 100+ Best Places and Best Reasons to Purchase LED Lights 

And going on now (only for another week or so) at HolidayLEDs  is a Christmas Light recycling program that can earn you some discounts on LED lights. 

I’ve emailed HolidayLEDs to see if they will continue the much needed recycling program after the discount period ends on Dec 20th.  Will update.

Also, keep in mind that there are other ways you can help to make this a green Christmas.  If you are going to send out Christmas cards,  please use recycled paper (we haven’t sent them out at all, the past couple of years).  Try newspaper comics or old maps for wrapping gifts or use reusable gift bags.  You can even contact local newspapers to see if they will give you the extra paper left at the end of the newspaper rolls after printing.

Also, keep in mind that ALL green wiring in holiday decorations does contain lead so be sure to wash your hands and keep your little ones away!  Another thing to keep in mind, is that if you are just plain done with your old decorations and ready for new ones, Freecycle is the way to go to keep unnecessary stuff out of our landfills.