Christmas Lights Advice

It’s hard to believe, but the Christmas season is just around the corner. First the air takes on a crispness that I’ve always associated with going back to school. Ok. So, it’s been a few years since I started a school year. This change of season makes me start thinking of the Holidays.

For many people, Halloween kicks off the holiday season. After the excitement of Beggar’s Night is over, we begin thinking about decorations, gifts, family dinners, holiday parties, and holiday baking. There are so many details to remember. Not only throughout the holiday season, but in gearing up for it too!

Here are a few tips on getting ready for the Holidays: (more are coming this is just the beginning…..)

Christmas Lights
Perhaps you aren’t planning to decorate your home until the day after Thanksgiving. However, it is always a good idea to take your Christmas lights out and determine what types of lights you already have and which ones you’ll want to purchase. Make a list of mini lights, C7 lights or other Christmas lights you’ll want to add to your holiday decorating collection. Once it is time to put up the decorations, use Christmas lights both on the inside and the outside of your home to make everything festive and inviting.

Make a plan of your Christmas light display. Whether you draw a picture of your home on a plain piece of paper with a pencil, upgrade your plan to graph paper and a ruler or use the coolest and latest lighting automation software - come up with a plan of how many lights you’ll need, what style and what color theme will suit your taste and impress your neighbors.

If you use artificial wreaths and garland, be sure to unearth them early to make sure they are in good shape for another season.

Gifts for Loved Ones
Create a list of people for whom you’ll be purchasing gifts this year and then list possible ideas next to each one. As you are out shopping, keep the list with you so you can refer to it and be able to get that one-of-a-kind gift for that special someone. Stocking stuffers can be everything from small toys, gag gifts, food items, candies, or other small trinkets, so keep your eyes open for those while out shopping too.

Holiday Baking
Do you have those recipes for special baked goods that only make an appearance during the holidays? Whether you’re baking special goodies with the intent of giving them as gifts or using them for entertaining, now is the time to begin planning which goodies you want to bake for the holidays. Create your grocery list and then go shopping. Some people like to bake a few items over time leading up to the holidays. Others set aside one entire day and dedicate it to baking goodies for the holidays. Planning ahead means you’ll have a beautiful plate of cookies or fudge to set before guests at a moment’s notice.

Dinner Parties
The holidays are the perfect time for entertaining. We tend to pull out the linen tablecloths and napkins, the decorative napkin rings, crystal candle holders, and ornate serving dishes that never see the light of day the rest of the year. When planning for a dinner party, begin with the guest list and then send the invitations in plenty of time so your guests will get your date on the calendar before anyone else’s. Plan your menu, shop for the food, cook, bake, and then enjoy the company of your friends and family with great food and a fantastic atmosphere. Take the time this year to add white mini lights to your dining room to add a bit of Christmas warmth and cheer. Mini lights are perfect used with candles to create an inviting dining room. Your dinner party will be one that is remembered for years to come.

Stores and online retailers are already prepared for consumers who are planning now for the holidays. Get a start on your holiday shopping for Christmas lights, gifts, cards, food, and decorations now and you’ll be ready when the holiday season actually arrives.

Shellie
Christmas Lights
Copyright 2008

or Spider Cider and Lady Fingers: Halloween Party Food

What’s a Halloween party without perfectly-themed food? Every party will be a little different, but here are a few ideas to get you started.

Kids Halloween Parties

Food coloring is your friend! Start with the old standbys – cupcakes and hot dogs and such – then get creative. Dye your cupcakes neon colors or even black (you can get specialty food dyes at good cooking stores or online), then frost with white or orange frosting. Look in the candy aisles at the store for bags of chocolate fingers and eyeballs to stick on the cupcake.

Or make dark devils-food cupcakes, top with chocolate frosting and crushed black cookie crumbs, then embed some gummy worms into the frosting for dirt cupcakes. Sprinkle spider rings on the tray with them.

Hot dogs, slit from one end to a little past half to make eight “legs”, will cook (grilled or boiled) in such a way that the “legs” splay out, making hot dog spiders. Serve with olives (eyes), noodles and spaghetti sauce (guts and blood), and string cheese (lady fingers).

Candy, of course, is a must. Mix up traditional favorites with some gross things – gummy worms and body-part chocolates. Gummy spiders are always a winner. You can have these in a big dish or – smarter – put them in favor bags.

For drinks, float a half-gallon chunk of rainbow sherbet in red fruit punch – fizzy is preferable. If you can find some, put some dry ice in to get the lovely steamy effect, but be careful and don’t let the kids touch it.

Finally, you have to have an apple-bobbing event. Use a wide, shallow bowl, and put just enough water into it to float the apples. Pick off the apple stems so no one is tempted to cheat!

Adult Halloween Parties

Start with candy. No matter how old you get, you’re never too old for Halloween candy. Use the same candy you’re passing out or purchase upscale specialty candy, whatever works for you, and put it in a nice favor bag.

After that, the sky’s the limit. Start with finger foods – that look like real fingers. Strips of steak or sausage, large pretzels, and other finger-like foods, complete with “bloody” dipping sauces, are always a hit. Pigs in blankets become mummies, when you wrap them all the way in phyllo dough.

For more upscale foods, experiment with pumpkins. Sort and keep the pumpkin seeds from your jack-o-lanterns, and roast them with different flavorings: salt, Mrs. Dash, or a Mediterranean herb blend are winners. Chilled pumpkin soup is a winner, as are pumpkin breads.

Most importantly, pay attention to your drinks: Bloody Mary is a must, and a good assortment of alcoholic beverages will always do well. The children’s punch noted above but made with Sprite and rum is excellent, for instance. Decorate the table with lights, and put dry ice under fake spider webbing to keep your cold dishes cold while lending some nice fog to your overall party atmosphere.

And – have fun.

Shellie Gardner
Copyright 2008
Halloween Lights

Who would think that something going on around the world could affect your Christmas decorations? That is exactly what is happening as China diverts electricity, resources and man power to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Check out this article in Business Week - As Olympics Open, China’s Economy Slows

Industries are being asked to cease manufacture in rotation throughout the country. As a result, some styles of LED Christmas Lights are coming into the country several weeks later than normal.

So kick back, watch your favorite competitors but remember you may have to wait a little before your favorite Christmas lights arrive for the Holidays.

Go USA!!

Shellie
Christmas Lights
Copyright 2008

Who doesn’t love Halloween – the candy, the flat witches-who-crashed-into-trees, the candy, the gaudy costumes, the candy? And even better, Halloween is our fastest-growing holiday, with nearly as much being spent on decorations as on Christmas, and more being spent on candy and sweets than on Easter.

Chances are good that you are planning to spook up your life with some Halloween gloom, or maybe even throw a party for little or big ghosts, goblins, and other assorted frights, complete with traditional purple and orange lights and enormous vats of candy. But why do we celebrate Halloween?

Halloween’s Spooky History

Halloween falls at the time of year when trees are dropping leaves, plants are shedding their last blooms, and animals are preparing for long winters. In many cultures, this is the end of the year, while in others harvest feasts and celebrations are being prepared. Every culture that celebrates Halloween or a festival like Halloween believes that this is the time of year when the lines between life and death are blurred, and living spirits may walk the earth.

While many believe Halloween is a pagan holiday or something that mostly came from witches’ Samhain, you’ll find that everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere cultures have a holiday like Halloween; in China, for instance, Ghost Festival is celebrated (though much earlier than Halloween). In Mexico, El Dia De Los Muertes feels like a very creepy Halloween blended with Mardi Gras, its traditions coming as much from the Aztecs as from Christian culture. Ancient Egyptians and modern Pacific Islanders, Peruvians and Russians, all celebrate some form of this death-and-food festival. Go figure!

So harvest festival plus day when the dead rise up out of graves – it’s easy to see, when you look at it this way, why you give candy to children dressed like skeletons. The Power Rangers and Strawberry Shortcakes are perhaps a bit more ambiguous.

Halloween Traditions – Or, Why Pumpkins and Masks?

Halloween Symbols

There are reasonable explanations for the mishmash of things we think of as Halloween symbols. Start with the costumes, one of the universal features of this festival from China to Paris, TX. Because the line between life and death is theoretically thin, the spirits of the dead can cross into the world of the living. It works the other way as well – weak living spirits can be enticed to the world of the dead. (insert spooky oohh ahh ahh here) Therefore, mothers dress their children in costumes of the dead so that the spirits will mistake them for fellow ghosts, ghoulies, and spirits, and will leave them alone.

These same costumes gave birth to trick-or-treat. Children, already cleverly disguised as spirits and cartoon characters, can force adults to give up treats lest the “spirit” play a trick on them. The spirits would have sought out treats, anyway; since Halloween is a harvest festival, tradition requires that the living share food with the dead, and this is a time when many cultures leave food at graves to appease or honor the spirits.

Not to belabor the food aspect, but consider that candy is a symbol of that harvest festival; we don’t have a feast anymore, but candy is an easily-portable sign of plenty. Bats, cobwebs, the dark, and spiders are all associated with death and the grave, thus were easily adopted into the holiday. See how it is all coming together?

Fire

And then there is fire. No other holiday is so closely related to fire, whether in bonfires or Jack-o-lanterns, candles or hearth fires. Traditionally, the fire in a house was kept burning at all times, throughout the year, because it was so time-consuming to light a new one. At the festival of the dead, however, fires were extinguished because it was believed spirits would enter the house in search of their warmth. Bonfires were often lit outside houses to draw the spirits there.

Today, you see the fires mostly in Jack-o-lanterns and the occasional bonfire. A new trend has people decorating with white, orange, and purple mini-lights and rope lights, and a few people are using black lights and glow-in-the-dark decorations to give their homes an extra creepy air. Why those colors? Orange is a traditional harvest color, referencing ripe vegetables and the color both of flames and of the turning leaves. Black is associated with the dark and death, and purple is an acceptable substitute for black when you’re designing lighting that you actually want to see.

Halloween in America

Halloween has been celebrated in the United States for centuries, though its status today as the second most popular holiday is new. Even in Puritan New England, the more secular members of the community used this day to tell fortunes and feared the dead rising from their graves. The Pennsylvania Dutch, though they did not recognize Halloween as a holiday, took extra care to ward off evil spirits at this time of year. And starting in the 1700s, Halloween grew into a holiday when people engaged in frightening one another with stories and tricks, with its own literature (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) and traditions like jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treat.

Halloween as we know it today was born in the 1950s, when the baby boom resulted in lots of fun-seeking children at loose ends on the streets on that night. With a historical problem of vandalism on Halloween, communities everywhere institutionalized trick-or-treating, and children throughout America started going door to door in a playful ritualization of what had once been a problem. “Give me a treat or I’ll pull a trick.”

Of course, there’s no keeping grownups out of the fun. In the 1960s, adults were not willing to give up that free, celebratory feeling they had as kids begging for candy, and dress-up Halloween parties became an annual masquerade tradition. Today, adults have as much fun as children, if they celebrate the holiday right.

And in America, they generally do celebrate it right. The only holiday that sells more décor and lights is Christmas. Halloween decorations on houses are becoming commonplace, even expected. And most adults agree: Halloween is, in essence, a time to cut loose, to celebrate life and fun before the dark days of winter begin.

Shellie Gardner
Christmas Lights for Halloween
Copyright 2008

It looks like the folks over at Purdue are hard at work improving LED manufacture - hopefully this technology will eventually help decrease the cost of LED Christmas lights!

Advance brings low-cost, bright LED lighting closer to reality from PhysOrg.com
Researchers at Purdue University have overcome a major obstacle in reducing the cost of “solid state lighting,” a technology that could cut electricity consumption by 10 percent if widely adopted.
[...]

July 23rd has become the unofficial Christmas in July day!!  Since alot of Christmas lights gurus start ordering their lights in August and September, it’s time to start thinking ahead.

Some colors and styles of lights are snapped up and go out of stock pretty quickly so if you are interested in curtain mini lights, brown wire lights and some varieties of battery operated lights order online early.

Most of the specialty Christmas lights available on the internet will be coming back in stock in August or September.  Check out your favorite online vendors and sign up for their newsletters and waiting lists to ensure you’ll be one of the first customers in line.

Now is a great time to fish all of last season’s Christmas lights out of the closet or attic and take an honest inventory of what you have that you’ll reuse for the 2008 season.

Plug all of your light sets in - of any variety - to confirm that they all come on.  Sometimes inhospitable attic conditions can affect the lifespan of light sets.

Most incandescent mini lights last less than 1000 hours unless you purchased commercial grade mini lights that last anywhere from 3000 to 10000 hours. 

Popular LED Christmas Light sets are rated by their manufacturers for 50,000 hours of operation.  Consider this a specification related to the LED durablity compared to traditional lights.  Stresses and wear on wiring, power surges (always use a surge protector with LED Christmas lights, harsh weather exposure and use in static vs dynamic displays can decrease LED life or can ruin the sets altogether.

So make sure you check all you lights and start thinking about any additions, substitutions or replacements you’ll need to add to your wish list.

Respecfully submitted,

Shellie Gardner
Christmas Lights

Tags: Christmaslights, Christmas in July, led Christmas lights

You’re planning another birthday party. You’ve been to the party stores and the department stores for paper decorations. The cake is ordered and the invitations have been sent. However, something is missing. The paper decorations alone just don’t seem to be enough. Why not bring a fun, festive and unique flair to your birthday party by decorating with mini lights? Mini lights are the perfect addition to any party decor.

Decorating for birthday parties doesn’t have to be typical or boring any longer. Use your imagination to utilize mini lights in every way possible for your next birthday party. Here are a few ideas for incorporating mini lights into your birthday party decorations.

Does your daughter love to dress up and pretend she is a princess? Throw her a princess birthday party. Decorate the doorways with pink and white tulle. Then, intertwine pink mini lights around the tulle to outline the doorway. Continue the theme into the party room. Use the same idea to decorate the front of the buffet table and cake table. The gift table would look beautiful with pink and clear mini lights swagged around it against a pink tablecloth. Drape pink mini lights from the ceiling of the party room to add more color. Or, it would be simple to alternate crepe paper and mini lights across the ceiling.

Boys love pirates! Purchase or make a large treasure chest. Decorate it with orange or clear mini lights. Fill it with fake gems and treasures. Perhaps include the game prizes in here too. Are you really creative? Make a cardboard pirate ship in the front yard and deck it out with clear mini lights. This would be especially fantastic for an evening birthday party!

For a fiesta themed birthday party, decorate with our multi colored mini lights. Birthday parties for younger children aren’t the same without a piñata. Create a circle on the ceiling with multi colored mini lights and then hang the piñata right in the middle of the circle. Hang a curtain of multi colored mini lights in the doorway where the children walk into the party room. Place a few blow-up cactus plants around the party room and use either multi or clear mini lights to wrap the cactus and pool some lights at the bottom of the pot.

A Sweet 16 birthday party isn’t complete without pink and purple mini lights decorating the doorways, windows, food table, and even the sidewalks leading into your home or into the party room. Create the number “16″ on a wall with mini lights. Perhaps put pictures of the teen growing up in and around the lit up number.

Decorating for birthday parties for people turning 40, 50 and older sometimes seem to always focus on black items. Why not approach those milestone birthdays a bit differently? Instead of “grieving” the birthday age, celebrate it! Use multi color mini lights or several individual strands of colored mini lights to decorate the party room. Perhaps you’ve chosen antiques for your party theme. If your party area is large enough, bring in antique props, like red wagons and wooden wheelbarrows. The red wagons would look fantastic outlined or draped with red or clear mini lights. The wooden wheelbarrows would be so pretty decorated with clear mini lights. Use old-fashioned lamps on the food and dinner tables. Surround each one with battery operated mini lights for a beautiful effect.

Decorating for birthday parties with mini lights is a great way to create a party atmosphere that is a step above the others!

Shellie Gardner
Mini Lights
Copyright 2008

Santa likes to get out of his red suit in the summer so he’s hanging out over at Christmas Light Source in a Hawaiian print shirt (best source - local resale shop - “just got 4 for $3 each”, says the jolly man) and he’s sporting sandals and a cool drink with an umbrella.

Nice to see him taking it easy in July!!

Shellie

Even in the middle of summer, fudge is a great candy to make for friends - even better because it’s unexpected. I am making a batch for a friend and thought I’d post a couple of my favorite recipes. Try your own additions - like crushed peppermints to make the recipes your own!

Bookmark this post for later because fudge really is one of the absolute musts of any Holiday season. Its melt in your mouth rich flavor is not to be missed and it makes a great gift when your Christmas gift giving budget is running low and your list of friends is long.

Fudge packaged in a pretty box - try a chinese take out style box from a craft store with some colored cellophane - is a great hostess gift and time of year. (maybe you should include a set of battery operated mini lights tied with a bow as well for your hostess to use to accent her table :-))

Chocolate Fudge with Marshmallows

This has to be an all time favorite. It is easy to make and makes enough to satisfy the largest chocolate craving as well as making plenty for gifts. You will want to start out with the following ingredients.

4C of Sugar
1 large can of evaporated milk
1 stick of butter about 1/4 lb
1 oz or 1 sq of Bakers Chocolate unsweetened
1 pkg of semi sweet chocolate chips - 12 oz
1 package of marshmallows - 16 oz
1 tsp of vanilla extract
optional 1C of nuts chopped

Directions

In a large saucepan, combine sugar, milk, butter and chocolate squares. It is best if the saucepan is heavy. Bring the ingredients up to a low boil and stir for about 15 minutes. Remove from heat add vanilla, marshmallows and chocolate chips. Combine until smooth. At this point if you are, adding nuts add them and then pour into a 9×13 in pan. Allow to cool and then cut into pieces. This fudge does need to be stored in a cool location and the recipe makes approximately 5 lbs.

For those looking for a more traditional Chocolate Fudge Recipe here is one that is sure to delight.

Chocolate Fudge Recipe - Old fashioned

You will need the following ingredients

1 1/2 C Milk
4 oz Unsweetened chocolate (Baker’s squares work well for this)
4 C Sugar
3 tbsp Light corn syrup
1/4 tsp Salt
3 tbsp Butter or margarine ( butter is preferred)
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla

Directions
In a 2-3 quart heavy saucepan, combine milk and chocolate. Cook on low until chocolate is melted. Then add sugar, corn syrup and salt. Cook until mixture reaches a boil while stirring constantly.
Using a candy thermometer cook without stirring until the mixture reaches 234F. Remove from heat instantly, ADD Vanilla, and butter. Do not stir these ingredients in.
Cool the mixture until it reaches 110F or until lukewarm, and then beat using a wooden spoon until the mixture begins to thicken and begins to lose its gloss. Approximately 15 minutes then spread the mixture into a buttered 8×8x2 inch pan. Let stand until it has cooled and set then cut into squares and serve. Makes approximately 2lbs

These are just two of the great recipes that can be found for fudge. Fudge can be simple and easy to make but it does take practice. Burning the chocolate can give a rather unpleasant smell and taste as can boiling the milk too hard during the cooking process. The reward however is well worth the added work and fudge can be one of the best home made food gifts that can be given during Christmas and all year long - even summer.

Shellie Gardner
Christmas Lights
Copyright 2008

Most of the seasoned veterans already know that the current generation of retrofit LED Christmas light bulbs (not the pre-lamped sets) are not suitable for choreographed displays but I thought it merited a mention here.

This is due to engineering differences between the sets and bulbs - primarily related to the way the voltage is stepped down in each scenario - and the bulbs receive an impulse when they are rapidly turned on and off due to a capacitor used in their design. So, flash, flash, fizzle.

So, take advantage of the retrofit C7 and C9 bulbs in your gorgeous static displays but as of now don’t purchase them for dynamic computerized displays.