Goodbye Traditional Christmas Lights: The Sustainable Trend Taking Over For 2025

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When songsters Mel Tormé and Bob Wells wrote the lyrics "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" in 1945, they probably weren't looking for ways to make their Christmas lighting scheme more sustainable. But nowadays, a good fire, whether from the environmentally-friendly pellet stove or a flickering candle, counts as just one of the ways holiday celebrants are making their holiday light displays more eco-friendly. LED and solar Christmas lights have become increasingly popular, and replacing traditional lights with these modern offerings makes sense for the sustainably-minded. Energy Star LED Christmas lights offer 10 times the energy efficiency of regular lights, and they consume 90% less energy than their old-fashioned incandescent counterparts.

The rise in popularity of other-than-traditional Christmas lights has been driven by a number of factors. On a grand scale, the availability of tech like predictive AI, which can be used to measure energy usage and make predictions to cut down on holiday energy waste, has seen bumps in metropolitan areas like Texas, California, and New York. Financial incentives like tax rebates have helped to shape public opinion about holiday sustainability, too. These big-city tech advances and government and market incentives eventually influence what happens in smaller market areas. As a result, we're using fewer of the Christmas lights we grew up with and more of the lights that are kind to the Earth.

It may not come as a surprise to you that decorating with sustainable Christmas lights is becoming more and more common. Still, the adoption of such measures in principle can be easier than in practice. Take Seattle, Washington, for example. Although plenty of people, in general, now use solar Christmas lights to decorate the outsides of their homes during the holidays, this isn't much of a thing in the Emerald City. This is thanks in large part to the stormy weather and the lack of sunny days. That's why it's important to know about the many different types of high-tech sustainable lights on the market: You have options no matter where you live.

Let's start with LEDs. These are popular and readily available in many forms. Consider items like LED string lights and the Kitloo Store's LED Christmas Snowflake Projector. In the former case, it means you'll still have twinkling lights on the tree. They'll just be better for the environment and longer-lasting. The latter uses lights from LEDs to cast Christmas scenes onto the facade of your home. 

This isn't to say that you should rule out decorating with Christmas lights that are powered by the sun. Not every municipality has the low-light problems that Seattle does. Some of the more visually interesting incarnations of solar holiday lights are plants lit with solar mini lights. Solar-powered tree ornaments are another fun option. With those, there's no need to restrict the twinkle on your tree to string lights. 

We might understand intellectually why it's good to exchange traditional strings of Christmas lights for their more energy-efficient LED or solar-powered counterparts. However, that knowledge doesn't exactly satisfy the nostalgia factor brought on by Nat King Cole songs, which don't conjure images of flashing lights hanging on the branches of Mr. Tannenbaum. Fortunately, many low-tech holiday lighting solutions don't just satisfy the itch of nostalgia; they're also highly sustainable and make for gorgeous decor options that are just as nostalgia-producing as holiday tunes. 

Mirrors, long used by interior designers to reflect and enhance the natural light in a room, can be your secret weapon when it's time to set the lights aglow. You'll get not only the light from items like candles but also from their reflections in the mirrors. To that end, you can hang mirrors near the tree. Or try creating a holiday centerpiece featuring candles. Make a mirror the base that the arrangement sits on to maximize the effects of the lights.

Other items that throw off old-fashioned vibes and, more importantly, are sustainable, are Christmas lanterns and jar lights. You can use these simple items, such as Dollar Tree jar lanterns, to replace your outdoor overhead light. You can also decorate with Mason jars filled with tealights and adorn them with some holiday stencils to create a soft light for the guest bathroom. Any of these options, or ones like them, add holiday cheer to your home and offer viable alternatives to the energy-sucking holiday lights you used to hang on your tree and put up on the lawn each Christmas.