Brighten Every Season: Innovative Ways to Decorate with Holiday Lights

The gray, gloomy days and long dark nights of January, February and March can provide a dreary contrast to the brilliance and spectacle of the holiday season. What happened to all the lights?

Humans are by nature creatures of light. We’re at our mental and physical best between sunup and sundown. During winter, when daylight is limited, some people even use special lights to raise their spirits and their energy levels.

Fortunately, there are easy ways to bring more light into your home, inside and out, during the darkest season and throughout the year.

Instead of retiring your Christmas lights and other lighted decorations, use them around the house in new ways. Your home – and your outlook – will soon be much brighter!

Easy and pretty: Those are exactly the two words you want to hear when you need bedroom decorating ideas. Fortunately, Christmas lights deliver that balance of beauty and minimal effort.

Whether you twine them around your headboard, frame a floor mirror or criss-cross them along the ceiling, a string or two of warm white Christmas lights adds a charming touch in the bedroom.

Want a bit more allure? Try pink Christmas lights, pastel lights or purple micro lights for a touch of romance.

Christmas lights add ambience to adult bedrooms, but in kid’s rooms they really shine! String lights bring whimsy to a child’s room and can even help ease children’s fears by serving as a nightlight.

Plus, with a little extra effort, you can create something magical. For instance, glue or staple lengths of sheer fabric to a small wooden or plastic hoop mounted to the ceiling. Drape warm white string lights or fairy lights over the netting, letting them spill to the floor. Fill the area beneath with blankets and pillows to create an enchanting reading nook.

Or search out star-shaped theme lights. Princesses and space explorers alike will be entranced by glowing stars framing their headboard or suspended from the ceiling line.

A fireplace that’s non-functioning, or infrequently used can become a decorating black hole. The good news is, there are plenty of ways to turn that empty grate into an attractive focal point.

Flameless candles can bring an uninspiring mantel to life. Use LED candles or candle lanterns to set the fireplace aglow – with little effort and not a single flame. Add a cozy radiance inside a firebox with clusters of pillar candles. Or, arrange three or more candle lanterns of various sizes on the hearth.

Flickering flameless candles are a convenient, attractive and safe way to add long-lasting light to the mantelpiece and hearth.

From the bookshelves in your family room to the open shelving in your kitchen, artistically accent your decorative storage with creative lighting.

For instance, use fairy lights to expose the darker recesses of your bookshelves and bring attention to treasured collectibles and family photos.

Twine micro lights or wide-angle LED lights around your knick-knacks, let them drape off the shelf edge or incorporate them into artificial ivy, eucalyptus or your favorite seasonal garland to dress up shelving or brighten the dead space above your kitchen cabinets.

Alternatively, bottom-mount warm white tape lights on shelving to illuminate the shelf below.

This is also a great way to add task lighting under your kitchen cupboards. You’ll love the additional illumination. The warm, indirect glow of bottom-mounted LED strip lights is a non-jarring way to light your kitchen when rummaging for a late-night snack, or at dark-thirty in the morning while preparing your first cup of coffee. 

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Whether you work from home or simply spend an hour or so a night at the computer clearing emails and paying bills, perk up your workspace to make it more welcoming.

Use warm white LED Christmas lights – or your favorite color string lights – to supplement or replace your standard room lighting. Overhead lighting can be harsh, but a few string lights in strategic spots – the upper perimeter of your room, for instance, or draped above your desk, creates a softer glow that’s gentler on the eyes.

If you need an afternoon energy boost, consider brightly colored LED string lights, LED neon table lights or lighted wall art. Colorful, neon-style silhouettes in fun and quirky designs could be just the lift you need.

Want something a little more soothing? From still life to nature scenes to international landmarks, lighted canvas wall art provides an attractive place to rest your eyes while adding a soft glow to your room.

Lights on a Christmas tree are beautiful, but fleeting. However, you can echo some of that holiday magic throughout the year by lighting up the live or artificial plants around your home. Just twine a few mini LED lights through your artificial palm or drape fairy lights around your fiddle leaf fig for an instant decor pick-me-up.

Smaller plants can benefit from a similar glow-up. Wrap battery-operated fairy lights around a dracaena, fern, succulent or philodendron for added charm.

Plus, artificial ivy wrapped in LED fairy lights is a classic way to add interest to a mantel, shelf or kitchen cabinets.

Be sure to use LED lights to highlight your greenery, as incandescent bulbs can produce enough heat to scorch some artificial foliage and live plants.

These are just a few ways to use Christmas lights to shed a little light indoors during the gloomiest months of the year. Once you get started, you’ll probably think of many more ways a few sets of string lights can brighten your life while the weather keeps you inside.

Just because the weather is inclement doesn’t mean you should ignore your outdoor spaces. Winter or summer, string lights and other types of lights commonly used at Christmas show their immense versatility.

Besides, it won’t be winter forever! Enjoy some of these lighting ideas now and keep them in mind to add charm to your yard when the warmer weather arrives.

Social media is full of garden crafts that sparkle with fairy lights. Cast-off teapots and watering cans spill light into flower beds. Mason jar lanterns, twinkling like fireflies, line walkways and tabletops.

Battery-operated and solar-powered lights allow you to create unique and beautiful backyard accents, limited only by your imagination.

Whether it’s a row of lighted globes glowing on a porch rail or a cluster of lanterns bordering a patio or garden path, with a few string lights and a little ingenuity, you can put together something magical.

Mini lights and patio lights are a great way to accentuate yard structures like pergolas, trellises and arches. Wind lights up the poles and around the frame or weave them through the latticework.

Lighting a backyard structure helps define an area at night. Plus, the structure pulls double-duty as an additional light fixture.

Don’t leave gazebos, sheds and pavilions in the dark. Take full advantage of all lighting options by wrapping your yard structures in light.

Summer or winter, if you’re venturing into your yard after dark, you need light to see by. That illumination doesn’t have to come from a harsh motion-sensor spotlight, however.

Instead, the same flexible rope lighting that you might have wound around your porch railing at Christmas can be used to line a deck rail, define a stairway or border your garden beds.

LED rope lights are bright, versatile, energy-efficient, long-lasting and weather-resistant. They come in warm or cool shades of white and many colors, and in lengths that adapt easily to outdoor applications and can be linked together for additional length.

If you enjoy summer backyard entertaining, you know the importance of proper lighting. Comfortable outdoor lighting illuminates your outdoor seating and dining areas without glare, encouraging people to relax, unwind and enjoy the evening.

Patio lights are a favorite way to define an outdoor dining area. These versatile string lights offer a pleasant warm white light that keeps the party going after dark.

Hang popular globe lights and Edison lights along the porch or patio eaves, on pergolas or string them from the roofline to the trees.

Patio string lights may be all you need to make your outdoor space more welcoming, but a unique outdoor overhead lighting fixture ups the atmosphere.

One romantic look favored by decorators gives new life to an old chandelier. String a non-functioning branched light fixture with warm white string lights and suspend it from a pergola, porch roof or tree branch to add a little romance to your dining space.

Or, use lights to turn an interesting piece of driftwood or a ring of woven grapevines into a casual outdoor light fixture.

Most people think of lighting up their backyard for warm-weather entertaining, but a well-lit yard can be just as enjoyable in the winter.

If you have a fenced yard, lighting opportunities are practically built in. Use string lights or patio lights draped from fence post to fence post to envelope your yard in a warm glow.

From the early twilight of winter to those slow-to-brighten mornings, you’ll have ample time to appreciate the sparkle of new-fallen snow in the glow of warm white Edison lights.

Lighting brings out the winter magic of a sleeping garden – but it has a practical side, too. Pet-owners will appreciate a little extra light to keep track of their pooch during nighttime breaks. No flashlight necessary!

What are the advantages of LED lights vs incandescent light bulbs? Each has its pros and cons.

An incandescent light bulb – what many people recognize as the original or traditional light bulb – contains a fine filament that produces light when an electrical current runs through it.

Incandescent lights usually have a warmer, almost golden tone and are less expensive. The bulbs on incandescent string lights are often replaceable.

However, incandescent light bulbs also produce heat: The larger the bulb, the hotter it gets. This could be a concern in a child’s room, or if heat might damage other nearby objects.

Incandescent lighting also uses more energy than LED lights. That limits the number of light strings you can safely chain together and plug into a single outlet.

On the other hand, the low wattage of energy-efficient LEDs means you can string together many more light strands without worrying about overloading your outlets. That’s convenient, especially when you have a limited number of outlets in a room.

LED Christmas lights are bright and come in a range of vivid colors. Many LED light sets may also include a convenient remote control, offer multiple flash settings and even some color-changing options.

While they should last a long time, LED string lights can initially be more expensive to purchase. Also, the bulbs are not always replaceable. 

Battery-operated string lights can be a good choice for some outdoor applications. They’re perfect for use in hard-to-reach spots and areas without easy access to an outlet, making them a favorite for outdoor crafts ranging from door wreaths to garden art.

Before you commit to battery-powered lights, however, consider the added expense and trouble of replacing batteries.

Also, whether you choose electric or battery-operated lights, be sure they are approved for outdoor use.

How you hang your lights will depend on the location and situation. However, many of the hooks and hangers sold as Christmas light accessories work well for other applications.

Attach patio lights to a roofline with gutter or shingle clips. Suction cups, magnetic hooks and removable adhesive-backed hooks work well for many indoor projects.

Non-traditional products are another option. Consider metal S-hooks to hang lights on a picket fence. Fasten string lights to a trellis or railing with zip ties or even fishing line.

Use nails, tacks or staples cautiously. Piercing or damaging the electrical cord can cause a fire hazard.

The end of the holiday season shouldn’t leave you stuck in the dark. Indoors and out, there are many creative ways to adapt Christmas light products to brighten your home and boost your mood.

Apply one of our ideas, adapt them to suit your purposes or use them as a springboard for your own creative solutions.

And until the sun shines again, delight in the light!

Browse Christmas Central for lights and lighted decor for your home and yard. With more than 20 years of experience in online retail, we have a wide range of Christmas lights and decorations, as well as year-round holiday and home decor.