In today's economic market saving money is on just about everybody's mind. With the Holiday Season just around the corner, it might be the time to look at solar Christmas lights. Now I know that this sounds like a prelude to a bad joke, but solar lighting has become a very practical way to light up your yard and decorate your home.

Now obviously, if you connected string of lights to a solar panel they would only shine when the sun was out. The secret to solar lighting is the battery, which the solar panel charges by day, so that the battery can power your lights by night. The second essential ingredient, is that you should use LED light bulbs, because they use approximately 1/10th of the power needed to power traditional incandescent light bulbs. This allows the battery to last longer at night. There are some very funny videos on YouTube about solar Christmas lights-you should check them out.

Now you could build your own solar powered Christmas light system, and while that would be fun, today you will find that they can be bought more cheaply as a set. These sets vary in price and quality, but it is easy to find a string of lights with solar panel and battery for under $20. Now these sets won't have the battery life that you would get if you took a 12 V car battery and charged it with a solar panel, but they are by far the easier route.

Obviously the advantage of using solar Christmas lights is that they dramatically reduce your power bill. They are powered 100% by the Sun, so no matter how prolific you want your decorations to be, your power bill will be unaffected. This not only has a positive effect on the environment, but on your wallet as well.

Ron Hartwell is a semi-retired Math and Science teacher who has taken an interest in the internet and the environment. Sometimes going by The Green Math Dr. he has recently started writing in places like HubPages and places of that ilk and found it to be fun--ergo this article which is his first.

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