LED Lights Trim Trees’ Impact

After the turkey has been gobbled, the last carrot consumed, and the leftovers stowed, America will move to round two of holiday merriment. Starting this Friday, cities across the country will usher in the holiday season with time-honored parades, visits from Santa, and traditional tree-lighting ceremonies.

Unlike Christmas pasts, however, a growing number of cities and shopping districts will deck their halls in an ever-greener effort using energy-efficient LED bulbs.

Trees from New York’s Rockefeller center to downtown Cincinnati’s Fountain Square will use LED lights to wrap Christmas trees and illuminate holiday displays, reports USA Today. (The effort follows on municipal efforts to replace traffic signals with LEDs.)

According to Consumer Reports, LEDs (that's "light emitting diodes," by the way) run cooler and use about one-fourth the electricity of incandescent light bulbs. Though slightly more expensive than incandescent bulbs, LEDs will save enough electricity to pay for themselves in one holiday season, trimming municipal holiday budgets by the hundreds, even thousands of taxpayer dollars.

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