Get matched with top holiday decorators in Springfield, SD

The easiest way to hang Christmas lights on your roof is to attach them to your gutters, but there are plenty of user-friendly methods to try. You can use light clips to easily hook Christmas lights to your shingles, eaves, gutters, or soffit. However, using a telescoping pole is a surefire way to ensure your safety while hanging Christmas lights because it doesn’t require using a ladder or climbing onto the roof.

Christmas lights typically do not need to be grounded like electrical circuits in your home do. However, it's crucial to use outdoor outlets equipped with ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs) for added safety. GFCIs can help protect against electrical shocks and are recommended for outdoor electrical connections when using Christmas lights.

You can take a few steps to prolong the life of your holiday lights. Make sure to replace burnt-out bulbs as quickly as possible to avoid overloading the rest of the circuit and knocking out more lights. Before packing them up each year, plug each strand into the wall to confirm everything is still working. Wrap the lights carefully back into their original packaging or something similar—winding a strand tightly together or leaving it to hang loose in a storage bin can lead to frayed or damaged wiring. 

First of all, don’t shop for bargain lights—often, you’ll end up with a faulty or broken strand, full of dead bulbs or less-than-luminous brightness. Choose quality lights that will last you many years—LED lights have been known to last as long as 100,000 hours. Second, plan ahead and purchase lights for next year’s Christmas during this year’s post-holiday sales. Finally, have a vision and a plan—if you know the measurements of your home, including any windows, doors, and outside bushes you wish to light up, you should be able to only purchase the necessary lights and not more than you need.