The best Christmas lights are cheaper, brighter, cleaner LEDs

Sure, they use less electricity, last longer and their price continues to drop. But there’s another reason LED lights have become the norm for holiday illumination. “I think the draw is what they look like,” said Warren Cook, manager of energy efficiency at the Oregon Department of Energy. The lights are getting brighter, and each year there are more colors. The days of the incandescent light bulb as a Christmas fixture — hanging from eaves, circling windows and brightening Christmas trees — are fading. Increasingly over the past five to 10 years, light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, have taken over the holiday light market.