LED Christmas, finally.

It appears that I might finally have the upper hand on this Christmas light thing. It’s about time too. Ever since I first heard about LED Christmas lights I’ve had a deep and powerful compulsion to buy them. Every year I go to the store and the small supply of LED lights is more or less decimated. [And here, Dawn, I’m using the modern popular definition of decimate, not the archaic definition by which I would mean that one tenth of the supplies were gone and ninety percent remained. I know that makes you a little sad.] Last year it appeared that the stores stocked more LED Christmas lights but by the time I got there the pickings were slim. There were definitely not enough to outfit an entire Christmas tree. To succeed in procuring LED Christmas lights I knew I would have to get an earlier start.

I assume its self evident why you would want to own LED Christmas lights. They’re only superior to yucky old incandescent bulbs in every way imaginable. They last longer, consume way less energy, and are much harder to break. The initial investment is perhaps a bit higher but I imagine that will come down in due time. Since they consume less energy there is an argument to be made that they are cheaper in the long run... if you care about that sort of thing. I think it’s hard to put a price on how happy owning them will make me.

This year I decided to start looking for lights in August. Just after the Christmas in July tomfoolery but a couple of weeks before the official Christmas shopping season starts (but not many…they keep moving that up). I was able to shop for lights online, which was nice. Last year when I tried to do that all the online places were out of stock. I think all of the municipalities that are swapping over to LED lights keep buying out many online places, even this year a couple of the places are already starting to run low. I placed my order on August 13th and promptly began waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

This year’s LED shipments hadn’t actually come in yet. I suppose they were still being manufactured in China. Part of the problem is I ordered a unique shape of light, because I wanted to grant our Christmas tree a certain idiosyncratic style. I’m excited because I think it might be a couple of years before you see our lights in the stores. It’s always fun being a trend setter. Every time I checked the predicted shipping date on my lights I noticed that the date had been pushed back….I started to fear that our Christmas lights wouldn’t make it in time for Christmas….but this week I finally got a call that inventory had finally arrived and our order is currently being filled. Hooray. By this time next week I should be the proud owner of LED Christmas lights. A 4 year quest will finally be at an end.