- 13 Dec, 2025 *
i was talking about christmas with a friend and they had said that multi-colored christmas lights were tacky. if we’re being honest, christmas itself is pretty tacky as a whole. ￣へ￣ anyways. since i moved out, i needed to buy my own lights for my own place this year. my boyfriend and i bought one of those pre-lit trees from target, and some LED strings for the bannister and window.
after working sooooooo hard to put them up.. something still felt off. every night, when i would turn the lights on it felt so... cold? and heartless. it didn’t feel like the christmases past at my old family house. i googled around and realized that it was because these new LEDs had nothing on the old incandescent lights that used to be the norm. of course, incandescents were …
- 13 Dec, 2025 *
i was talking about christmas with a friend and they had said that multi-colored christmas lights were tacky. if we’re being honest, christmas itself is pretty tacky as a whole. ￣へ￣ anyways. since i moved out, i needed to buy my own lights for my own place this year. my boyfriend and i bought one of those pre-lit trees from target, and some LED strings for the bannister and window.
after working sooooooo hard to put them up.. something still felt off. every night, when i would turn the lights on it felt so... cold? and heartless. it didn’t feel like the christmases past at my old family house. i googled around and realized that it was because these new LEDs had nothing on the old incandescent lights that used to be the norm. of course, incandescents were being phased out in recent times due to fire hazard and high energy usage.
being afraid of fire hazards i searched for warmer LEDs. i saw that there were some new companies like vintaglo/merryco and trutone making warm, incandescent style LEDs. these are absolutely gorgeous from what i can see in photos and videos, but the price point is atrocious. nearly $70 for a 25 bulb set is absolutely mind-blowing. definitely for the rich suburb folks who can wrap their entire home in lights... sadly i’m not working with that financial freedom. i saw that sylvania made a new line called "traditional glow" and it was available at target. however it was sold out at every target, even for online ordering. i know that December is considered "late in the season" for some reason, so that’s my own fault. i was pretty depressed about the light situation.
i went to my mom’s house since she had been giving me some of her old decorations to use (thanks mom). i found at least 5 strands of the old incandescent lights, plugged them in to test them out and... fell in love all over again. i knew the christmases i grew up with were warm and magical, but i forgot just how beautiful the incandescent lights really were. maybe it’s just nostalgia talking and i’m blinded by that, but these lights really are so warm and cozy and just so... christmas. i spent all day tearing down the LEDs and putting up the incandescents that my mom gave me and when it was time to turn them on.... i was speechless and honestly a little emotional. the difference was actually insane. here’s pictures for comparison.
the difference is staggering. the incandescents just look so... whimsical. candy coated. just pure joy. the LEDs are so cold and jarring to look at.
a few days ago i was lucky enough to catch a quick restock at a target 30 mins from me of the sylvania ones, and for being $3 on sale each, i grabbed 5 boxes. for what they are, sylvania did a great job. they are so much warmer than the standar LEDs. the blue is still very much blue, but not as overwhelming or garish as the regular LED blues. they are a tad more orange toned than the incandescents, but for $3 and less fire hazard and lower energy, it’s not a bad trade off. here’s a comparison of them next to the standard LEDs.
i don’t have a great picture of them next to the incandescents, but i have a pic where you can see them in the background hung in my kitchen and how they are a bit more orange and less candy colord than the incandescents here:
you can see they’re a bit more orange-y in the picture. honestly though, in person with your eyes, it’s not a huge difference to where you’d be able to point it out. you can really only notice it on camera or if they were directly side-by-side and you were staring. also, don’t get me wrong... the standard LEDs aren’t all bad. i think they’re good for places like arcades or casinos but.. i don’t want my home to be cold and eye-hurting. granted, this is all just opinions at the end of the day.
hopefully the demand for incandescent style lighting continues to grow so that we can have the perfect, candy colored replicas that are safer and less energy hungry. until then, i think for holiday lights i will stick with incandescents as long as i can still get them.
