Having Trouble With the Christmas Lights? A Quick Guide to Setting Your Lights Up Quickly
The first rule of setting up Christmas lights is: it’s much more fun to look at the house all lit up brightly at night than it is to spend your Sunday doing electrical work. Psych yourself up with some inspirational Googling, take a walk through the neighborhood to see what standards you’ll need to live up to, and prepare to amaze your family and friends with your outdoor illumination prowess.
Make a Plan for Your Fantastic Lighting Display
Planning is going to save a heck of a lot of time (and swearing). It’s easiest to measure the area your want to light up first, then plan out your lighting design knowing that you’ll make it to the edge of the roof, window, or doorframe. You may need a ladder to measure some areas; this important first step will also allow you to work out where the best and safest spots are to plant your ladder before you try heading up with a load of lights. Another pre-lighting chore is to ensure every single bulb works on your strand, taking care to replace dud lights so you don’t experience a burn-out midway along your roofline.
Keep Everything Safe and Secure, and Use Gravity to Your Advantage!
Make sure to wrap the connections that join separate strands. Use electrical tape; this will prevent moisture from shorting out your lights or causing a fire hazard. Then, secure any outdoor extension cords with tent pegs to avoid tripping up the postman. While a house may be quite simple with its straight lines and right angles, there just is no easy way to put lights up on a tree. Do you wrap the trunk, then festoon the branches, or just whip the lights around and around like a barber pole? As with step one, the important thing is to decide what you are going to do first, so that you don’t find yourself halfway up a tree with a rope of lights between your teeth, wondering how you’re going to get back down. An intelligent move is to carry ALL of your lights up as high as you can safely get to in the tree, then unwind your lights downwards from there. It is far easier to lower lights down than it is to lift them up.
Tips to Avoid Tangles
A simple solution to the annoyance of having to disentangle a snarl of Christmas lights is to wrap the lights around a PVC pipe, then install the whole pipe in one clean length along your roofline. This is also an easy way to store lights until next year with no tangles—just pull down the pipe but leave the lights wrapped up. Another “cheat” is to use icicle lights, which offer triple the square footage in illumination while affording the simplicity of a linear hanging system. Naturally, the best way to deal with hassles around hanging Christmas lights is to never take them down, but the neighbours may get annoyed come July when yours are still twinkling away. It is permissible to put the job off until after the New Year, but then—even though the magic has worn off, and nobody is out cheering you on—do take the time to carefully store them in coils. You’ll be glad you did when you aren’t opening up a box of chaos the next holiday season.
Your valiant light hanging efforts will pay off the first night you flip the switch. Gather your family on the lawn and bask in the glory of your job well done. For just that moment, you’ll be the king of your castle.
