Christmas time fills me with a giddy thrill, dare I say a compulsion, to decorate. And no decorative element is more necessary to this holiday than the lights. Lights stimulate a twinkle in our brains that has begun to dwindle along with the disappearing daylight hours. We make special journeys to drive through gigantic illuminated forests. We proudly install electric candles in our windows to represent our hospitality. And the lights on our trees remind us of the shimmering starry sky. The most significant light is the star perched atop our Christmas trees, a symbol of long ago beacon of hope.
The annual lighting of the trees on the courthouse’s green space after the Christmas parade signifies the start of the holiday in our little town. The crowds anticipation builds as music plays and speeches are made, the smells of hot chocolate and fried food fill the air, and the fanfare culminates in a proud showy explosion of … LED lights! You’ll know these cousins of fluorescents by the weird alien blue glow they emit. I stood transfixed in horror. Gone are the days of the warm winking twinkling lights in the trees along the avenue that made me fall in love with this town. Why did our town’s management feel the switch necessary? Was it out of a civic duty to conserve energy or money when they had this years correctional crews install these lights?
Every year the mandate goes out to those of us who live around the green. We are to make sure the candles are in our windows in time for this event or else. Do you think I cheaped out and found Compact Fluorescent candle light bulbs? Of course not. I spent near a dollar a piece for the 4-watt incandescent candle bulbs because they’re the right ones. They make my heart happy as do candlelight at dinnertime, firelight to cozy up to, a 60-watt incandescent bulb to read by, and taking pictures of loved ones at sunset.
Do people truly value saving money over lighting aesthetics? If you tortured my retinas with more LED lights, I still couldn’t make this choice. But were I to publicly plead a case for the beauty of incandescent bulbs verses the cost efficiency of CFLs, I’m sure I’d get a smack down from the supporters and makers of these “miracle” bulbs. They’re the good guys who are helping everyone with this Go-Green-Eco-Thing while they count and deposit all that bulb money. My only recourse may be to offer a little demonstration in the ease of calculating the cost of holiday lighting. A warm fuzzy glow in my home is a gift I give myself without fear of going bankrupt. Light bulbs and Christmas lights, when not left on 24/7, are the proverbial pennies while the electric baseboard heaters and ovens and dryers are the dollars flying out the door.
In order to calculate how much I’ll spend per hour on electrical costs, I need to figure out the quantity I’m using per hour and the cost per hour. The following are “need to know” terms when discussing electrical supply and consumption. Volts are the units of electricity the power company sends into your home. Amps and Watts are the units of energy used or consumed by you when the on button is depressed on any electrical gizmo. You can convert amps to watts by multiplying the number of amps by 120.
And kWh stands for a kilowatt hour or the use of 1000 watts for an hour. Most importantly, these are the units of power the electric company measures and charges you for. (If you can’t even stand the mention of math, feel free to skip this part and simply go to michaelbluejay.com where this gentleman provides a site with electricity information, a calculator, and tons more. Impressive to even the husband.)
