Hanging Christmas lights and how to install Christmas lights: If you want to decorate your house with Christmas lights, here are some bright tips and ideas on how to hang Christmas lights easily and safely.

Decoration and outlining your windows, eaves, and garden area or shrubbery with decorative lights can enhance the looks of your house and enliven your home for Christmas and other occasions or holidays. Hanging outdoor holiday lights cans sometimes be a tiring job particularly when you have use teetering ladder and face tangles of light strings that don't work.

Below I explain some tips and ideas on how to make the job easier and safer so that you can hang and install outdoor lights smoothly.

During Christmas and the holiday season, Home Improvement centers are flooded with many types of decorative lights - from conventional mini-lights and icicle lights to mesh-style light strings made for wrapping tree trunks and several other lights for outdoor and indoor decoration.

The choice is yours, you can choose clear, white, or colored lights that stay lit, blink, or chase. Your choice for the right style of lights for your home will depend upon the look you want to create and your budget. Energy requirements for lights are another important factor to consider when you go for shopping lights for outdoor decoration.

2) "Mini-lights," have miniature bulbs and are so far the most popular as they are inexpensive to buy and to power because of their cool-burning 1.5- or 2.5-volt bulbs. C-9s and C-7s become very hot and consume more energy than the same number of mini-light bulbs.

1) Planning: Plan the area to hang your outdoor lights. Make sure there is an electrical receptacle for the lights. Run heavy-duty extension cords from the electrical outlet. Make sure that both receptacles’ circuit is rated to handle the combined amperes of all light strings that you connect to it. You can use outdoor automatic timers to switch on all the lights in the evening and switch off late night.

2) Measurements: Using a long measuring tape, take measurements of doors, windows, bushes or trees where you plan to hang the lights. Now measure the lengths of light strings.

3) Testing your lights: Before you hang and plug the lights, inspect the light strings and look for any broken or missing bulbs and worn or defective wires. If there are any faulty wires, replace the entire strings. If there are broken or missing bulbs, replace the bulbs. When the light string is complete, plug it in and check for burned-out bulbs. Always unplug the string before replacing faulty bulbs. Now re-test to make sure that all lights work.

4) Using ladder: Use a stepladder or an extension ladder according to height of the place where you intend to hang the lights. Make sure the ladder is firm on flat ground at an angle so that it is comfortable and safe to climb.

5) Hang the lights along eaves: Hang lights along eves without marring your home's trim or walls. For hanging lights along gutters or the roof, use plastic clips made that are readily available. These clips grip shingles or gutters and have a lower hook that holds a light strand or extension cord.

6) Attach lights to trim: For attaching lights to window trim and any other similar vertical surfaces, you can use tube light clips or nail-on plastic clips. Leave space as required. Don’t use staples or nails to hang light strings as they can pierce or wear-away the protective insulation, creating an electrical hazard. Similarly hang lights on bushes and trees.

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