003: Christmas Lights, Ranked
Sponsored by The Home Depot
A few weeks ago, after my girlfriend and I got into a heated argument, I headed to Home Depot to sit on a stack of raw lumber and think about what it is I’m doing wrong. With its high ceilings and unused toilets, this glorified warehouse is sacred ground, a place I can wander around, study my feelings, talk to God, and admire the latest advances in bathtub technology. On this day, I entered through the tall sliding doors and noticed some changes. Inflatable Santas guarded each aisle. Fake pine trees blended in among the houseplants. The Garden Center — which I call the “tabernacle” — had been overrun with Poinsettias and wicker reindeer. I realized the spirit of Christmas had found its way to the Depot, and in the thrill of it all, I immediately forgot what my girlfriend and I had even fought about.
As a kid, I endured many weekends being dragged around hardware stores by my elders. I hated every second of it. I didn’t yet understand the point of maneuvering a busy place for hours just to look at things they’d never buy, especially if those things were lawnmowers and the month was January. I’d accompany my parents on a “quick run” to buy salt for the water softener, just to tail them as they compared doorknobs and carpet textures. The longer they browsed, the more I dragged my feet, the closer I edged to madness. So, I’d slip away from their gaze and hunt for things to do.
Sometimes I’d meander about the paint aisle and flip through swatch books, searching for the most outlandish color names. Soured Milk. Earthen Jug. Sexy Grape. How do you make a grape sexy? I wondered. (I later learned it may be possible through surgery.)
Or I’d test out the patio furniture by pretending to be a wealthy executive enjoying an evening cocktail on the balcony of a beach house. “What a lovely sunset,” I’d say to my fake wife, Sexy Grape. “I can’t wait to see the look on Earthen Jug’s face tomorrow when he steps onto our new yacht.”
Or I’d bravely approach an employee. “Hi there! Am I allowed to jump on this fully-functional trampoline? Oh... it’s just a display? Alrighty then. Could you lead me to the pest control aisle so I can gnaw on a brick of rat poison?”
Eventually, I’d wind up in my favorite aisle: lighting. Apart from being the most interactive section of the store (there were switches to flip and dials to turn!), it was also the brightest. I was fascinated by the way humans figured out how to bend electricity into the craziest of forms and took great care observing each contraption. I wanted the floor lamp with three baby lamps clinging to it. I wanted the light fixture that mimicked something Paul Revere carried on his infamous night ride. I wanted 25 lava lamps to set up in the basement as a makeshift jellyfish forest, like the one in Finding Nemo.
When the sun had set and we’d finally emerge from the store, I’d fantasize about installing a chandelier in my room, replacing the bulbs with black lights, stripping down to my white underwear, and doing backflips off my bed. This has yet to happen, but there’s still time. Come to think of it, it’s what sparked the argument between me and my girlfriend.
They say lighting influences emotion. Low, soft lights can make you sad, or horny, or both. Black lights urge you to slip on whitey-tighties and do somersaults. Colorful lights bring out your inner child, the one you locked in a box and dropped into a river when you learned how to do taxes.
Which is why I had such a sentimental reaction when I reached Home Depot’s lighting aisle and saw an overwhelming array of holiday lights. So many shapes, so many colors, so many possibilities. Due to the current state of affairs, I’ve realized I may never own home of my own. (I live in a one-bedroom apartment, which makes my newfound affinity for Home Depot all the stranger.) This has made me hyper-critical of what other people do with their homes, partly because I’m jealous, partly because I’ve seen some horrifically-lit houses and know I could do better. Maybe those people should’ve spent more time thinking about their displays. Or maybe they have kids like the one I was.
This led me to ask: what are the best Christmas lights? I’m no expert in exterior design, but I do have eyes, which gives me some credibility in making this ranking below. Take it with a grain of salt, or take it as scripture. Let’s go.
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10. Projector lights
If you use projectors to illuminate the outside of your home, you deserve neither your home nor the land it sits on. Projectors are the laziest of lights and the Homeowner’s Association should do more to eradicate them from our streets.
9. Inflatables
I’m considering these as Christmas lights just so I can denounce them. Christmas decorations are meant to glamorize your home, not leave it looking like Gettysburg for half the day. Even at night, inflatable decorations are corny and bothersome, which are two things you shouldn’t be if you’re easily susceptible to vandalism. If I’m going to spend $200 on something that will eventually be destroyed by pre-teens, I’ll buy a condom dispenser.
8. Rope Lights
Rope lights are flexible and hardy, but what they boast in versatility they lack in spunk. I share a similar opinion on licorice, which is made of the same material.
7. Pathway lights
Pathways lights best reflect the spirit of the holidays. You can’t stick these in the ground without thinking about others: your loved ones, your neighbors, the Amazon driver who stops at your house five times a week (and probably delivered the lights to you). You’re providing the gift of light to those visiting your abode and avoiding all the drama that’d come with grandma slipping on a sneaky patch of ice and fracturing her fibula. However, pathway lights ride an extremely thin line between tasteful and cringy. Here’s a quick breakdown.
Acceptable forms of pathway lighting:
Candy canes
Normal-sized bulbs
Garland
Tiny realistic trees
Lanterns
Unacceptable forms of pathway lighting
Snowmen
Candles
Oversized bulbs
Peppermints
Olaf from Frozen
Gumdrops (should lead to immediate foreclosure)
6. Snowflake lights
A few days ago my girlfriend and I drove by a garden center where big snowflake lights perched like doves in the branches of a tall oak. They looked nice enough for her to point them out: “How cute!” Sadly I can’t think of another place these would look good. A Kindergarten classroom?
5. Icicle lights
Aesthetically, the icicle light is a solid choice. They may be harder to untangle than the basic string light, but they glimmer nicely in the night, swaying back and forth in the wind like an Irish folk band.
My only qualm with them is geographical. Living through harsh South Dakota winters for most of my life, I learned the easiest way to install icicle lights was by shining a flashlight at your gutters. I live in Colorado now, where the weather is comparatively mild. Seeing icicle lights invokes the memory of long, dark, bone-chilling winters, of which icicles (and snowflakes) were a main feature. It took me over twenty years to escape the tundra — I don’t need any reminders of it. If you live in warmer climates south of Interstate 80, sure, fine, put them up, but don’t be surprised when I’m in town and a stone comes flying through your living room window. Clipping those frozen pikes from gutters is an instinct I’ll die with.
4. Net lights
Unlike the aforementioned icicle and snowflake lights, net lights are a pleasant distraction from the lifelessness of winter, a way to beautify your shrubs as they hibernate. However, net lights should stay delegated to landscaping (bushes, fences, gnomes, etc.), otherwise people may confuse your home for a brothel.
Though I’m a big net light guy, I’ve never owned one, and they look about as fun to fold as a fitted sheet. Do you fold it corner-to-corner? Do you roll it like sushi? Do you ball it up, throw it in your attic, and forget about it for 11 months? If this thing is as difficult to store as I imagine it to be, I’m scared I’ll end up burning it in my driveway.
3. String lights
For decades, string lights have been the quintessential Christmas lighting option both inside and outside the home. Growing up, my parents had two storage bins reserved for string lights. Every year on a chosen Saturday, Dad would make me untangle strands until my palms bled. Scars aside, I can’t deny the dependability of the string light. They’re cheap, versatile, replaceable, and can withstand most blizzards.
They also have incredible color variance, which makes them useful for a range of occasions. When it comes to celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, some colors are more worthy. For example, unless you’re a freshman girl moving into a college dorm or decorating for a barn wedding, you should leave white string lights on the shelf. Sure, they’re simple and exude purity, but do you really want your roof to look like an airport runway? White lights say “Forget the happy children and the presents, my favorite part of Christmas is the three-hour midnight mass.”
Monochrome string lights can be cool, but not on their own. A few blocks from my apartment is an office building with trees wrapped in blue LED lights. Looking at them is like staring directly into a thousand tiny suns. They’re not insanely bright, but they’re intensely bright, and with no other colors to offset the intensity, they’ve become an epilepsy-inducing roadside hazard that’s already claimed the lives of many. For the sake of public safety, if you’re going this route, choose more than one color. (White works great here!)
Multi-color string lights are undoubtedly the most popular and balanced type of string light, but their prestige suffers from overuse. If you have no imagination, this is your best option. But if you want to earn the admiration of your neighbors and the respect of your children, you’ll need to find something more inventive.
All things considered, string lights are popular for a reason. No one will shun you for using them.
2. C6-C9 lights
I’m a bitch for bulbs. They’re Christmas to the core. Sure, they’re fragile and prone to shattering, but I have no problem ignoring a pile of glass shards on the ground. These lights do just as much as string lights, but perhaps better— tighten the wire and you have a perfectly uniform line of lights, slacken it and you can pin them up in classic U-shape fashion. As you’ve read, I’m not a fan of oversized bulbs, but keep those things roughly ¾” round and 1 ⅛” tall and I’m a happy man.
I’m not sure why, but it seems like the only people who use C6 lights were those born before 1955. The tiny tree my great-grandma puts up in her place is strung with these, as is my grandparents’ full-size tree, so I have some childhood attachment to these cute crystalized bulbs. They’re charming in a traditional way but may clash if you’re going for a more modern look. But that’s where the C7s and C9s come in, those sleek and sexy things. If our friend JC came back down from the heavens and saw the world lit with C7 bulbs, he’d delay the rapture a few more centuries. And if they were all LEDs, he might even cancel student loan debt. I don’t know when the C10s will drop, but when they do, I’m camping outside of the Depot like insane people do for the new iPhone.
1. Strobe lights
Everyone knows the story of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, but not many know what happened after Santa and Co. survived the fog and landed safely back at the North Pole. Teeming with relief and adrenaline, all the creatures stirred, even the mice. Imagine a Gatsby party, but instead of Leonardo DiCaprio chasing Carey Mulligan through a swanky mansion, picture Tim Allen snorting pixie sticks on a balcony made of almond bark. Reindeer situating a wrestling ring on the lawn and all getting red noses. Elves setting up a karaoke machine in Santa’s workshop and queuing up Slipknot’s entire discography. In a 12-hour span, a town of 2,740 consumed a quarter of the world’s eggnog. Historians refer to this night as “Project X-mas.” Fearing backlash, NBC cut this scene from the 1964 stop-motion classic, but every year on Dec. 25, we deck the halls with strobe lights to commemorate the legendary rager that occurred on the most remote part of the planet.
Things to Consume
A book you should read
Goodbye, Again by Jonny Sun
I’ve been trying to navigate a tension between my current self and my childhood self, who I stowed in a box when I created a TurboTax account. It’s weird growing up and accepting that my past is my past and I’ll never get to revisit it the way I want to. That I’m left with only memories and momentos, both of which erode with the passing of time. They’re better than nothing, but still not the same as hopping in the driver’s seat and seeing my most cherished moments in front of me.
Goodbye, Again made this pill much easier to swallow. In his short book of essays, Sun delicately and eloquently details the strangeness and sadness that accompanies growing up. He stings you with harsh realizations about our existence just to turn around and soothe us with unornamented wisdom and soft wit. He’s so human. And a good illustrator. 5/5. 10/10. For a taste, read his newsletter: https://jonnysun.bulletin.com/
An album you should listen to
Pronounced Mcgee by Mk.gee
Mk.gee is like Tame Impala if Tame Impala wasn’t afraid to do more than one thing.
An account you should follow
I’m currently on a huge architecture kick and Stockholm-based photographer Ryan Koopmans is partly to blame. His lens predominantly captures the symmetry and chaos that coexist within our urban spaces, though I’m particularly entranced by The Wild Within series, an “animated rebirth” of wildlife in abandoned buildings across the Soviet Union. It’s bittersweet to see the Earth reclaim what we built to keep it out. But it reminds me that Earth always plays the long game, something we could learn from.
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From all of us here at Garbage, He Wrote (me), happy holidays 🎄