Clark Griswold is the poster child for Christmas spirit.

How else do you explain how he decorated his house in the classic movie, Christmas Vacation?

But it does bring up the topic: How much does it cost to turn on your Christmas lights each year?

First, let’s start with Clark. There is an important difference with the Griswold house. Clark Griswold used the old-style Christmas lights. You know, the ones with the big and hot bulbs. They run on 6 watts & most strands contain 25 bulbs. In the movie Clark says he used 250 strands or 6,250 lights!

How much would this house cost to power the lights? If he ran that exact setup with today’s rates for 4 hours, that would cost $15 a day.

What if Clark used LED lights that are available now? LED Christmas lights average just .06 watts per bulb and most strands have 50 bulbs. Clark could have run 250 strands of LEDs for 4 hours for about 30 cents per day!

Christmas tree lights fun facts:

  • The average power per house that puts up lights is 1,000 watts.
  • The average family runs their lights for 4 hours a day.
  • The average cost for electrical energy is 10 cents per kWh.
  • The average household puts up decorations on Dec. 1 and takes them down on Jan. 1 so let’s say the lights are up for 30 days. So a 30-day use of 40 cents per day x 30 days is about $12 extra on your electric bill for the month. But when you figure nationally how many people put up Christmas lights, U.S. households are spending about $233 million to light up in December.Clark Griswold would be proud of that!