Whether or not you’ve watched the movie, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation has some classic scenes you’re sure to recognize. Probably the most popular has to do with the character Clark Griswold and his beloved Christmas lights. Clark goes all out when decorating his house with strings of lights – putting up 25,000 incandescent bulbs – which overloads the power system, causing a short blackout. Can you imagine how much money that would have cost? We sure can.
According to this article, it could cost anywhere from $5,281 to $7,552 to power them through the month of December, depending on where you live in the US. Yet those same lights, if LEDs, might only cost around $60. Their source, Estately, lays it out for every state. For Illinois where Clark lives, his incandescent lightbulbs would have raised his energy bill by around $3,309… while LEDs would only have added $38. That’s an enormous chunk of change he could have saved! If only he had been able to put up LED lights in 1989.
Of course, we believe that he could reduce his cost even further, beyond changing to LEDs. Solar-powered Christmas lights get more popular every year, especially as they increase in quality. Imagine Clark’s lights gaining all that energy from the sun during the day, and still being able to blaze like the sun (with way less heat than his incandescents).
So don’t be a Griswold, power your lights with solar! If you don’t have panels already installed, go here to quickly and easily find out how much you can benefit from it. Looking for something to get to you even faster? Enter our giveaway for a chance to win solar-powered lights you can use this year!
