Christmas Lights

Credit: Pletch/Cartoonstock

This is a blog post called 'Christmas Lights' written by a frugal and grumpy environmentalist, so I just want to say upfront that you shouldn't be expecting it to be full of Christmas cheer. There seems to be an unwritten rule when discussing anything to do with Christmas that the content must not in any way dampen the reader's Christmas spirit. This blog post won't be adhering to that rule.  

Not that I'm a Scrooge. I have plenty of Christmas spirit─̶ just ask my colleagues. A few Decembers ago, they individually gift wrapped every item on my desk then covered it with so much silver tinsel and shiny baubles that it looked like a team of elves had broken into the office, snorted a bit too much Wizz Fizz, and decided to throw an unruly end-of-year party in my cubicle.  My desk was obviously selected as ground zero for office decorating because I’m well known for my Christmas spirit.  

As delightfully entertaining as that was for everyone involved, today's blog post is not about the unnecessary wasting of resources on jovial staff bonding activities (that blog will come). Rather, it is a blog post about a far more ubiquitous ̶̶—and annoying ̶̶—feature of the Festive Season: Christmas lights.  

Now, if people want to string a few lights around the house on Christmas Eve so the family can feel extra festive while singing Christmas carols by the piano, go right ahead. It's a little string of glass, wire, and plastic that you should only need to buy one or two packets of in your lifetime. Compared to all the other pointless stuff that people buy for the sole purpose of storing in a box in the garage, Christmas lights are not too bad. At least they make an appearance once a year, which is more than you can say for most bread-makers.  

A string of lights around the Christmas tree that’s turned on for a few hours every evening, over a couple of weeks in December, does use unnecessary energy, but it is certainly not going to send us over the global warming tipping point. In fact, if everyone got into the pre-turning-on-Christmas-lights habit of walking around the house and turning off all the lights left on by children now gathered in front of the television, it would probably result in a reduction to the electricity bill.

My gripe is not with a string of lights wrapped around a brightly decorated tree providing some festive joy to a big family drinking eggnog together on Christmas Eve. (Actually, I have gripes with many of the things mentioned in this sentence but, for the sake of brevity, I'm going to just focus on the lights.) 

So, what is it about Christmas lights that annoys me? Two things.

The first irritation occurs when that family of eggnog drinkers goes to bed and leaves their decorative lights turned on. This is really a no-brainer and very easy to resolve. When the last person is vacating the room, they just need to walk over to the switch and turn it off. There is absolutely no reason for them to be left on if the whole household is in bed. Leaving the lights on all night does not result in everyone absorbing happy Christmas vibes while they are sleeping. It’s just burning pointless carbon and slowly contributing to the psychosis of the cat.

The cat already gets mercury-laden tuna for dinner every night. It doesn't need repetitive flashing lights permeating its sleep for a month. If you wake up on Christmas Day and find that Princess Kitty von Cuddlepie has used the festive strobe lights to shred the tree, smash all the baubles and strangle the Christmas angel, that's on you. Hopefully next Christmas you'll remember to turn off the lights.   

The second - and this is really the big one - is what I call the Festive Fence Fiasco. You know the house I'm talking about. There's at least one on every street. It's that family that thinks that the only way to truly demonstrate Christmas spirit is by turning the house into a beacon for the International Space Station.  

I have made it sound like lights being left on and Festive Fence Fiascos are two separate issues but, really, they tend to manifest together at the same houses.

When I am jogging around the neighbourhood pre-dawn, the streets are not being lit up by single rows of red and green lights strung modestly across living room windows. Those lights generally get turned off at bedtime.

The people that tend to leave the lights on are the ones that so completely cover their homes with Christmas decorations that it becomes hard to tell if the block has a house on it or is just an elaborate stage built for re-enactments of Santa's roof landing.  

It's really a wondrous Christmas miracle that these houses don't congest the electricity grid every night and black out the entire neighbourhood. (NB. I'm not really feeling awed by Christmas miracles when I run past. Mostly I am just feeling annoyed about the flagrant wasting of fossil fuels.)

Why do people keep their Festive Fence Fiascos on all night? Are they worried someone will be out admiring the Christmas lights at 3 a.m. and will miss their luminous art show?

Let me assure you, nobody is out admiring Christmas lights between midnight and 8 a.m. If someone is driving by at four in the morning, it is because they have a job that requires them to be awake when they would much rather be in bed.* The Festivites on your street may think that their Christmas-themed house is bringing local café workers some early morning cheer, but it is actually just serving as a reminder that they have to spend the next eight hours smiling at customers while wearing a Santa's cap and a bright green 'Merry Christmas' t-shirt as Michael Bublé's Christmas album plays on repeat.    

If you are one of those café workers, feel free to give those Festive Fence Fiascos the finger as you drive by. It might just give you the early morning cheer that they are trying to send your way. 

Now, even if the Christmas lights are LEDs, which they all should be (that really needs to be a law) and are only on homes that have more solar panels than roof area (another legislative gap), leaving them on all night is a pointless waste of resources.  

Not to mention how much it must infuriate the local bird population.  

I know we can't ask them but, if we did, they would very likely tell us that their REM sleep is shot from the end of November to early Jan. The streetlights are bad enough. The six foot, glowing, blow up Santa is a step too far.  

I considered writing a letter to the council. I know I won't.

I also considered writing a letter to the owners of the Festive Fence Fiascos. I know I won't do that either. 

Eventually, I decided that if I ever see one of them outside hanging lights, I'll just tell them their house looks ridiculous. That felt like the best strategy. These people don't give a damn about their carbon footprint. I figured commenting on their aesthetic decisions would be much more impactful.

Walking home from the train last week, I had the perfect opportunity. The Festivite at the end of my block was out the front hanging a new string of lights. Perfect, I thought. He is the chief lights-on-all-night offender on my area.

‘Hello,’ he said cheerily.

‘Hello,’ I responded, just as cheerily.  

That strategy is not going to work. We might be in the middle of a climate crisis, but there really is no excuse for rudeness.  

So, no. I'm not going to say anything. I don’t like confrontation (or talking to people in general). I'm just going to write about it anonymously on the internet and hope that someone forwards it to the guy at the end of the street. And to any other Festivites they know. 

If you have received a copy of this in your letterbox, it was very likely intentional. Please turn off your bloody lights.

Oh, and a very merry Christmas. To you and your cat.

The Quiet Environmentalist

Further Reading:

The dark environmental impacts of our Christmas season - Business Leader News

The Energy To Light Christmas (forbes.com)

Can Christmas lights be green? | Energy efficiency | The Guardian

Yes, Your Christmas Lights Are Festive, but Leaving Them on All Day Is Costing You - CNET

8 ways to tone down the Christmas lights to help wildlife – and why we should (theconversation.com)

*I appreciate that certain human beings choose to be out in the middle of the night for recreational purposes, but I generally try to avoid these people so I'm not including them here. I am particularly referring to the young men whose hobbies include burn outs, drag racing and other activities that generally involve destroying their own tires and waking up the entire neighbourhood at 1 a.m.

Admittedly, certain members of this group may very much enjoy looking at Festive Fence Fiascos once they've finished pretending the main road through my suburb is the Albert Park Circuit, however this is another reason that the lights should be turned off. We don't need to encourage these young men to take long detours home by leaving the decorative Christmas displays on in every housing estate.

NB. I assume they are men, but I'm happy to be corrected by any delinquent female readers whose proud membership in this group has not been acknowledged.

Published 03 Dec 2023