Christmas Lights

There’s an evening at the turn of November and December when the street splits into two camps: houses that sink into darkness, and those that suddenly look like a postcard. The difference is usually a few hours of work and a well-thought-out set: LED icicles on the eaves, a light curtain on the terrace, a string of lights around a tree trunk and glowing spheres in the garden. In this post we turn outdoor Christmas lights into a plan – from choosing a colour theme, through decorations for the façade, trees and garden, to power safety and mounting that leaves no scars on the house.

Christmas lights can do more for the festive mood than all the baubles put together – as long as there are enough of them, the colour temperature is right and they don’t give up halfway through the evening. Here’s how many lights a tree of a given height really needs, what separates warm white from cool white, how to safely join several strings into one installation and what to watch out for when the lights are going outdoors.