Four Ways to Make Your Holiday Decorating Easier

Decorating for the holidays is such a festive and fun tradition, but it can also be a lot of work. Installing lights on high-up gutters and eaves can be nerve-wracking, and constantly going up and down a ladder can be hard work. By the time you’re done with your project, you’re flat-out exhausted. And then you have to go out and do it all again in a few weeks to take them down. Plus, you have to figure out how to turn them on and off consistently, how to make sure everything is properly powered, and so many other considerations.

Fortunately, there is a better way. Here are four ways you can make your holiday decorating easier, faster, and safer this holiday season, as well as a few things you can do to make your holiday lights more energy-efficient in the process.

Use an Extension Pole to Install Light Strings

Stringing the gutters and soffits around your home with decorative holiday lights is a popular pastime, but it can be a challenging one. Some soffits reach heights of 20 feet or more off the ground, and that’s just for single-story homes. Most homeowners don’t have a ladder that will safely allow them to get up to this height, and it’s still risky for those that do. The higher you get off the ground, the greater the chances of an accident and the more serious an injury it can cause.

The solution? Many companies have developed a system that allows you to install lights easily without your feet ever leaving the ground. These systems place plastic clips onto the soffits around your roof, allowing you to securely clip your light strings with minimal risk. That means no tall ladders, no risking losing your balance, and no more risky rooftop ventures. Even your highest points will be much easier when you might only need a short ladder to bridge the gap.

Use Outdoor Smart Plugs

One of the worst feelings with holiday lights is spending all of the time and effort to set them up and then forgetting to actually turn them on. If your lights are switch-operated or run off of an outdoor circuit, then you will have to remember to actually flip the switch to fire them up. In all of the hustle and bustle of the holidays, it’s easy to forget. So why force yourself to have to remember? Have your lights turn themselves on!

Smart plugs are a great option for adding a timer to virtually any holiday light decoration. These devices plug into virtually any wall outlet and then connect to your home’s Wi-Fi network. From there, an app on your smartphone gives you the ability to manually turn your lights on and off or to set a schedule that turns your lights on and off for you without any intervention whatsoever. Smart plugs are widely available, and are generally extremely affordable as well, making this a great investment to replace traditional timers or the challenge of manually turning your holiday lights on and off each day.

Properly Secure All Extension Cords

One of the most difficult challenges of setting up any holiday light display is cable management. While strings of lights along the side of your home may be one thing, lights along a garden or flowerbed, lights lining a driveway or path, or even power run to a fantastic light display all require a cord to run along the ground somewhere. Anyone coming to your property could trip over these lights or cords, resulting in injury, and you’d be surprised how often that includes yourself.

Securing extension cords makes your holiday decorating far easier by giving you peace of mind. It also shows you exactly where your cords are so you can avoid them at all costs. Don’t be afraid to invest in something like a ground cable cover. If you’re concerned about it standing out, that’s a good thing—you want to know where this cord is at all times so you can fix it or move it if you need to.

Use Modern LED Lights

If you have ever finished hanging a string of holiday decorating lights only to plug them in and find one or more of the bulbs has burned out, you’re probably keenly aware of how frustrating this problem can be. Older, incandescent-based light strings used to suffer tremendously from burnouts, particularly because of the abuse of setup, tear-down, and packing. And unfortunately, many people didn’t discover burned-out bulbs until it was too late and their lights were already installed.

Modern LED lights are far superior in just about every way. LEDs are far more durable and abuse-resistant, meaning they’re less likely to burn out or break from being dropped or roughly handled. They’re also far more energy-efficient, meaning they use way less energy than their predecessors. And, depending on the type of lights you buy, they may even be able to change colors and functions, allowing you to have lights that behave and change in ways you may have never seen before.