Holiday Lighting and Decorations

It’s still early in the fall season – it can’t be time to start thinking about the holidays already, can it? But as we all know, the holidays have a way of sneaking up on us. For anyone who owns a home, or for our customers and vendors who may own or manage a property, the holidays provide a unique opportunity to showcase and share the joy of the holidays with customers, friends and visitors to your site. It’s a way that you can highlight your home or property, increase curb appeal and create a warm and festive holiday environment. If you don’t want to be caught short, you may want to start looking at holiday decoration options now!

There are a wide range of holiday lighting and decorating options—from interior or exterior lighting and wreaths to themed trees or creative displays and greenery, there are many possibilities that can help make a property look bright, festive and full of holiday cheer.

Tips and Trends:

• The biggest trend in the outdoor lighting industry is the use of LED filament light bulbs vs. incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs can last 5+ years, are more energy efficiency (using only about 10% of the electricity used by incandescent bulbs) and are brighter—all while producing very little heat, which can reduce the risk of fire. One of the downsides is that LED typically costs 40% more than incandescent bulbs.
• Another lighting trend is an increase in color varieties–with RGB LED lights (each containing red, green and blue LED’s which can combine to produce different hues), there are millions of colors to choose from.
• Increased functionality with controllers and systems—We’ve seen increased popularity in the use of separate controllers or systems that can be managed using a mobile application. Additionally, many lighting systems can be synced with music and can change colors on command.
• More generic lighting vs. themed—As property managers and owners attempt to decorate in more of a secular fashion, it’s becoming increasingly popular to wrap existing trees with string lights to create a magical appeal vs. appealing to any one particular religion. This type of twinkle lighting can also be left up longer than a more traditional Christmas tree.

As with many property related decisions, weighing how you’d like your property to look with what your budget and time frame allows, is a balancing act. The closer the holiday season gets, the busier schedules become, so early planning and execution is a key to success. Developing a plan as early as mid-summer with an install date in late October or early November is ideal (especially for larger scale projects). So start letting your creative juices flow and get a plan in place that will enable you to help put your property’s best foot forward this holiday season.