Your Guide to Buying Indoor Christmas Lights

Things To Consider Before You Buy

LED Bulbs

We recommend looking for lights with LED bulbs, though these bulbs are often non-replaceable they do offer a longer lifespan and are extremely cost and energy-efficient. They’re also brighter and much safer than old-style bulbs.

Choose Your Light Style

There are plenty of indoor light styles to choose from and each style works better for a different purpose. Here is your guide to the different light styles and what each one works best for:

Compact Cluster Lights are sometimes referred to as Christmas Tree Lights, that is because they look best wrapped around your Christmas tree. Compact cluster lights offer a more clustered and well-lit look, giving your tree a healthy glow. They are designed to make a tree look full and bright and work best for your main indoor Christmas tree.

String Lights offer a much sparser look and whilst some people prefer this look on their Christmas tree, we believe the best place for them is decorating garlands, fireplaces, wreaths, bannisters and other blank areas that just need a bit of festive glow.

Similar to compact cluster lights, Cluster Lights give a much fuller look and are perfect for Christmas trees. Other areas we think cluster lights are well suited to are; window frames, bannisters, and mantelpieces. The clustered appearance ensures your area is well-lit and bright.

LED Trees

LED Trees are another great way to light up your indoor space. From blossom trees to birch trees, these LED trees make for a great alternative Christmas tree or an interesting festive light feature. For indoor use, we recommend small LED trees and believe they’re best placed in corners of the room or hallways.

Novelty Lighting

If you’re looking for something more interesting or something to light up an indoor wall space, then we recommend some novelty lighting shapes. Whether you want something bold and outrageous like a reindeer head, or something subtle like hearts and stars, there are plenty of unique lighting features that sit perfectly on empty walls.

Additional Features

Mains Powered vs. Battery Operated.

A big choice when choosing your lights is battery-operated vs. mains-operated. We recommend mains operated for Christmas trees and other large areas as they tend to come in larger sizes. However, for small areas, battery-operated lights are ideal as you can hide the battery pack and won’t have wires hanging everywhere.

Lead Cable

If you opt for mains-operated lights be sure to make sure the lead cable is long enough to go from your chosen light placement to your nearest plug socket. We believe that 5m and 10m lead cables are an ideal length to give you freedom to choose your space. Additionally, you may want to consider the cable colour. If you’re using your lights on a classic Christmas tree then green or black cables will blend nicely, however, if you have a snowy tree or you are wrapping your lights around a window frame, a clear or white cable might be better.

Number of Bulbs and Lit Length

Whilst these will vary on the style of light you have chosen, with lights ranging from as little as 50 bulbs to as many as 2,000 you need to ensure you have enough lit length to cover your chosen space. Based on a full look using compact cluster lights we recommend the following numbers: 750 lights for a 6ft tree, 1,000 lights for a 7ft tree, 1,500 lights for an 8ft tree and 2,000 lights for a 9-10ft tree. If you choose a different light style or want a less full look then these numbers will differ.

Bulb Colour

We offer our range of Christmas lights in the following colours: cool white, warm white, cool & warm white mix, copper glow and multi-coloured. Whilst your choice of lights will ultimately depend on your preference and the other decorations you have, we believe for a subtle glow warm white, cool & warm white mix, and copper glow are ideal. For a brighter look, cool white is stunning and for a colourful look, multi-coloured is the obvious choice.

Light Settings

Many of our Christmas lights come with 8 multi-function settings and a timer feature. Having many options to choose from including the option to have simple static lights is a great feature, especially if you plan to keep your lights for many years as it gives you the option to mix it up a little bit and give the impression of something new. A timer function is hugely important as it helps to keep running costs down and means you don’t have to worry about turning your lights off before you go out or go to bed. Our timer function allows your lights to come on at the same time every day for 6 or 8 hours depending on the light style.

We hope that this buying guide helps you to choose your perfect indoor Christmas lights, however if you still need advice, we recommend speaking to one of our brilliant Christmas elves in-store or over the phone.