Nothing quite says ‘Happy Holidays’ like hanging roughly 75,000 lights on your house, by your house, in your house, in your trees, on your shrubs, on your lawn wrapped around an 8 foot Santa.

I’ve sent this out as part of my holiday newsletter for the past however many years in November, but with the advent of inflatable Halloween decorations and the early arrival of Christmas lights and inflatables I figure you should learn this earlier this year.

Holiday lighting and inflating is a fun, festive way to celebrate. I don’t know about you but I love to drive around town and ‘look at yard displays’ – the bigger display the better as far as I am concerned.

If you are a light hanger, or an inflatable inflater - inside or out, here are some tips to help keep you and your property safe.

• First and most important, call your electrician to come and install some outdoor outlets before you try to string 20 inflatable action balloons together using 5 extension cords and 4 multi-plug power strips (3 of which you will plug into each other) in your yard.

I love all of you, I really do, but I’m going to say this anyway: Don’t be an idiot. You know what it does outside? It rains. You know what doesn’t go with rain? Electricity.

Please, please, please have your outlets wired correctly and plugged into protected outdoor outlets. OK – now on with the show.

• Make sure that you only use lights outdoors that are rated for outdoor use.  The same goes for indoor lighting.  Also – be sure any extension cords you use are appropriately rated indoor/outdoor, AND use only UL approved lights
•  Make sure all outdoor receptacles are protected by a GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter).
•  Make sure that you have smoke detectors in your home and that they are working, as well as a fire extinguisher.
• Each year examine your old lights to make sure they are in good working order, and be sure to discard strands that are worn.
• Drop cords are the number one reason for electrical fires in homes, never run a drop cord under a rug, especially if there is foot traffic in the area, and never overload a drop cord. Never run drop cords out windows or doors.
• Don’t over load the circuit which the lights are on. Read the labels on the box of lights for the total wattage. Most outdoor circuits should only be loaded to roughly 1500 watts.
• If small children are in the home consider 12 or 24-volt lights.
• As a general rule only three strands of lights should be linked together.

Purchasing and Installation Tips

- Don’t screw hooks into your home to hold up the lights, they will eventually rust and begin to look bad. Use the new plastic gutter hangers from the store.

- Don’t drive nails into your roof to mount lights to. Use the new clips that mount under your shingles. However, if your roof is old and brittle, don’t use the shingle mounts either. In the case of an old brittle roof perhaps you should not put lights on your roof. Or get a new roof, then use the shingle mounts.

- Approximate number of lights needed to decorate your tree:

3’ Tree: 50 – 100 Lights

4’ Tree: 100 – 150 Lights

5’ Tree: 150 – 200 Lights

6’ Tree: 200 – 250 Lights

7’ Tree: 300 – 350 Lights

Figure 35 – 40 Lights for each foot over 7’

Of course, if you are my neighbor, you don’t hang lights each year as much as just plug in the ones you left up from last year. If this is you make sure you unplug the lights before you do any repairs.

One more important tip - don’t gamble on bad looking light strings. I think you can purchase 7-kazillion lights for about $1.37 - so if yours are old or frayed, by all means step up and get new ones.

Now that you know the basics – go nuts! Send me a picture of your creation to Dave@TheHomeFixItPage.com