Weds 24 Jan 2024 post begun 0915hrs GMT

 

Well, I've done it - Christmas season lighting is now all converted from battery (OH MY GOSH EXPENSIVE, those batteries!) to solar for outdoors and USB for inside. One only exception is the front window display which will remain a battery powered item but everything else is now solar and USB. 

 

No rush (hahahahahahaha!) but I am looking forward to Christmas 2024, God willing I'm here to see it. The multi-colour solar powered lights for the front garden promise to be the best light display we've had ever - 300LED micro lights means a much larger coverage (ok, yeah, 300 lights doesn't sound a lot unless the reader understands my frontage is two 'postage stamp' beds with the entry door between the two beds). On arrival of the new lights, we charged the solar battery then did a test run - WOW - plenty of lighting to cover both beds AND over the doorway, and bright enough to give a good display without going over the top. Space station crew will not be able to see our lights from space and the neighbours will not have to get a public nuisance order owing to any annoying excess light.

Speaking of neighbours and our annual Christmas lighting, several expressed some disappointment our formerly traditional blue lights on the evergreen hedge went missing this past 2023 Christmas. Our little cottage is at the side bottom of a popular dog-walking lane and they all said they missed the blue lights but understood the cost of batteries has risen so shockingly high as to preclude battery lights. 

 

Rechargeable batteries have always been ouchie-priced but this past year even the cost of non-rechargeables sky-rocketed. The blue lights took a total of twelve AA batteries twice during the lights-on season (Advent Sunday through 2 Feb)...ouch ouch ouch.

 

So Christmas 2023 saw us using a five pack snowflake stake lights - one set of three AA batteries and so far we're on the initial set. OK-ish but not great, the snowflakes can be seen from the lane but just aren't as pretty as the blue lights were. And not at all as cheery as the blue lights were. Everyone, from DH Paul to neighbour dog walkers, said the same thing - 'If ever we needed a cheery Christmas light display, it is this year' and they were spot on. 

I knew there had to be a better way...

The multi-colour set is very very good - great coverage, can easily be seen from the lane, and is quite charming. Did I mention the lights are solar powered? WINNING!

 

We used a 2ft 'snowy' (flocked) tree indoors, another set of three AA batteries to feed a 20LED micro wire string and I had to change out three times to get from Advent Sunday through Epiphany. grrrr! Worse, the battery power light set I used seemed to have too many green lights overpowering the too few other colours. 

I knew there had to be a better way...

 

I went looking and discovered USB light sets - well hell, who knew?! BONUS: I found JUST the right set (blue, snowy trees demand something tastefully special) in a number of lights (50LED USB power) that will be perfect for the snowy tree - AND best of all, I found, from the same seller, two more 50LED USB sets to be tucked away for when we want to use the 3ft green tree. One set each 'warm white' and multi-colour with the right number of green (meaning not many, lol!). I'll hang onto the battery sets but the USB ones will be our go-to sets. 

Perhaps to some all this fuss about Christmas lights is silly, I know I had difficulty motivating myself to decorate in or outdoors for Christmas 2023 and I don't anticipate feeling much motivation for 2024, all things considered. The world we live in has become so terribly fraught.

 

But Paul (and the neighbours) nailed it - 'If ever we needed...' - when the entire world teeters geopolitically so dangerously close to the edge, we need cheering up, we need traditions that cheer us up. 

 

Post published 1001hrs MT