The monthly electric bill says it all: You can pay $13.65 a month to have colorful strands of Christmas lights outlining your home’s rooftop, or you can pay 22 cents.
That’s the typical cost difference between powering five strands of old-fashioned incandescent holiday light bulbs and the same number of LED lights, according to Xcel Energy Colorado.
But switching to the more energy-efficient LED lights isn’t a complete no brainer. The cost of LEDs are still higher than regular bulbs, and Christmas LED light prices haven’t fallen as dramatically as LED light bulbs for everyday uses. The price of LED bulbs — the type you might have in a desk lamp or overhead light in your home — between 2011 and 2015, according to a research report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. (The lab didn’t study Christmas lights.)
“The prices have pretty much held steady because manufacturing the LED bulbs (for Christmas lights) is still a specialty and expensive,” said Shellie Gardner, co-owner of . “A regular C9 bulb is 26 cents, but if you were to get a C9 in LED in warm white, it’s $1.42.”
But LEDs will save you money in the long run, because of the electricity bill. They consume than incandescent lights and tend to last 25 times longer, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Of course, Gardner adds, “light strings are susceptible to weather so there’s no guarantee that LED lights will last longer. And if a squirrel eats through a string of LED lights, it will fail as fast as glass lights.”
The energy cost of Christmas lights
The typical Xcel customer in Colorado uses 632 kilowatts and has a monthly utility bill of $77.45 in December. Adding five strands of Christmas lights adds this to the bill:
- $13.65 five sets of 25 incandescent outdoor bulbs
- 22 cents for five 25-bulb LED strands
- $3.10 for five 100-bulb strands of incandescent mini lights
- 60 cents for five 100-bulb strands of LED mini lights
Source: Xcel Energy
How to calculate the energy cost of Christmas lights
Just knowing the electrical rating (watts) can help clue you in on the cost of a strand of lights. Here are the steps to calculate your own. As an example, we’ll take the Philips 100 multicolor incandescent mini-lights — which use 19.2 watts — through the calculation.
- Find out how many watts the lights use = 19.2 watts
- Multiply by 0.001 to find kilowatt-hour = 0.0192
- Multiply by 5, an estimate of how many hours a day the lights will be on = 0.096
- Multiply by 30, an estimate of days per month the lights are on = 2.88
- Multiply by 10.7 cents, Xcel Energy’s “all-in cost,” which includes the commodity price, riders and fixed charges = 30.8 cents
- Multiply by number of strands: 5 strands x 31 cents = $1.55 per month
Source: Xcel Energy, Denver Post research
Need some help? Use The Denver Post’s handy holiday-lights energy calculator and plug in your strands of Christmas lights:
The cost of Christmas lights
Non-LED Christmas lights are becoming harder to find. But we found some at Target so we did our best to find similar products to show a price comparison. Note that the number of bulbs per product are different.
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What’s new-ish in Christmas lights?
Laser lights: The quickest way to add holiday lighting are laser lights, which are staked in the ground and cast a wall of lights on a house, tree or other object. Golden-based says its Quatro Laser Light, a two-piece light that covers up to 6,000 feet, uses about 5 watts, said Dan Kennedy, with Infinity.
Internet-of-things lights: Connected Christmas lights are all the range in the DIY tech community. Sites like Cheerlights.com and offer tips on how to get your lights to respond to to change colors or even program lights into ,” where a mother communicates with her lost son using letters and lights.
Solar lights: Don’t mess with power outlets or pay any energy costs with solar-powered Christmas lights, which are widely available online at stores like Amazon. A strand of 50 solar-powered, multicolored mini lights runs .
Where to recycle old lights
Home Depot no longer accepts old Christmas lights but searching online shows a handful of places that accept old lights for a fee or exchange.
- Golden Recycling in Golden take old Christmas lights — even broken ones — for a fee. See its site for details:
- also accepts old and broken Christmas lights in exchange for a discount on a future lights order. Details at