I am an avid follower of Christmas lights trends. I have loved all types of Christmas lighting since I was a little child. I can still remember, as a child, glancing up at that paste board box placed on a high shelf in our cold storage room, knowing that it held our precious strings of shimmering Christmas lights. In those days Christmas lights were highly fragile so I knew not to try to pull the box down for a quick glimpse however tempting it might be.
Over the years, all types of Christmas lights have been transformed. The days of strings of screw-in incandescent light bulbs have gone. Although with the demise of those strings of Christmas bulbs go some of my fond Christmas memories. On a random day in early December my dad would arrive home from the office and announce it was time to put up the Christmas lights. He would put on what he referred to as his grubby clothes and make the pilgrimage to the cold storage room to collect the paste board box full of Christmas lights. He would then begin the process of testing each bulb in the string. If one bulb had burnt out often the entire string of Christmas lights would fail to light up. Some years putting up the outdoor Christmas lights went quickly but some years we were sent to bed without seeing the final glorious display of Christmas lighting. I have never lost any of my enthusiasm for these wonderful sparkly rites of late December.
These days there is an enormous array of different types of Christmas lighting. Of course, there are still many strings of white and red and green bulbs but now there are many other options as well. There are spectacular focus pieces such as hanging light balls, and hanging lighted Christmas stars, each made from over 100 tiny led bulbs. Some of these focus pieces are very large and taken up a visually large space (ie. 3 feet by 3 feet) while others are much smaller and can easily fit into most home Christmas lighting schemes.
There are Christmas string lights. These are simply the popular white outdoor string lights constructed with red and green led lights. Of course, white string lights are also a perfectly suitable addition to many Christmas lighting decor schemes.
The annual lighting of Christmas lights can be wonderful small family times or they can result in a splashy party. For example, Stella McCartney has a few friends over when she lit her Christmas lights last week. The event was held at Stella McCartney store on Bruton Street in London. It was hosted by Stella and Mary McCartney, Twiggy and daughter Carly, Jamie and Louise Redknapp and the Mighty Boosh gang, who re-created their famous Nanageddon episode dressed as grey-haired "nanas". Stella and her friends served mini mince pies, chocolate Christmas puddings, Champagne, apple juice with cucumber and pints of Guinness. I will try to post a pictures of her Christmas lights scheme in a latter post.
Whatever your Christmas lights scheme might be do it with joy. It doesn't matter if you have a huge budget (like SMc.mentioned above)or a modest budget. It doesn't matter if you host a blow out party or just put up the lights yourself. Holiday lighting is a special thing and, whatever the next Christmas lights trends might be, they are sure to be beautiful.
