MoT's WDF

Today I spent about 30 minutes seeing if I could fix the three (incandescent) mini-bulb strands from last year. During this futile exercise I was wondering what others do. I have a few strands of LED lights, but I still like the warmth of the incandescent lights. My LED strands fired right up.

I would love to have lights along my roof line, but my roof line is boring -- it would not look good in lights. Last year I put a couple colored (clear incandescent) C9 light strands on our stunted magnolia tree in the back yard and the light play was surprisingly cool.

This year I will just have a lighted tree in our front bay window where passersby can enjoy it, same as last year. And probably lights in my backyard magnolia tree again.

I prefer LED. Mainly for how vibrant they look, but also for the lower energy cost. There are LED strands that give that old-fashioned warm look, but I haven't used those.

We normally outline our balcony in lights and add a couple of decorations. This year I picked up some Philips LED rope lights, and I've been impressed at how easy using them is, and though the LEDs are quite small and the strand unobtrusive, they can still be seen from a distance.

So I grew up with the annual strand Troubleshooting process that my father had the boys do….move one bulb socket to socket to find the bad incandescent and get the strand to light. Since 2000 I have been full LED, and I will never go back.