Putnam Valley resident Shawn Keeler goes all-out for Christmas with 3,000 light-up plastic lawn figures, 75 lit-up wire frame decorations, 15 inflatables and more than 750,000 string lights covering his home and trees.
“I am Mr. Christmas. I've been playing Santa Claus since I was in the sixth grade,” Keeler said.
Keeler starts hanging his holiday decor around Labor Day and spends more than 500 hours making it ready to light up by the Saturday after Thanksgiving. His yard is lit up every night from 5 to 10 p.m. until the Sunday after New Year’s Day.
”When I was a kid, I fell in love with Christmas,” Keeler said. ”It's not just about putting up lights, It’s the holidays.”
Keeler has managed to pull off a bit of a Christmas miracle: His over-the-top display adds a lot less to his electric bill today than it did in the 1990s.
Keeler said about 30 years ago, the festive light show added more than $700 to his utility bill. In recent years, his yuletide usage adds between $300 to $400.
Keeler attributes much of that savings to switching from traditional incandescent bulbs to LED lights.
“I like the way they [LEDs] look and they don't use that much energy,” Keeler said.
Keeler’s lesson on balancing an abundant display while being energy efficient comes at a time when New Yorkers are dealing with skyrocketing electric bills and bracing for additional rate hikes in January.
“For a lot of people, the holiday spirit transcends the energy bill that comes the next month, between the lights, the inflatables, and other decorations.” said National Grod spokesperson Jared Paventi. The utility recently sent consumers tips about how they can be festively liberal while remaining fiscally conservative.
A string of 100 outdoor C-9 lights, the old-school teardrop-style lights, costs almost a dollar per eight-hour day to operate, according to Paventi. The same type of lights using LED bulbs is seven times cheaper to operate.
The Rockefeller Center Tree switched to LEDs in 2007. The tree, which is strung with 50,000 lights and topped with a 900-pound Swarovski crystal star, is lit for 18 hours every day. The energy savings is equal to the monthly power used by a family occupying a 2,000 square foot home.
LEDs are also safer than incandescent lights and won’t dry out your tree or make it a fire hazard.
”We encourage LEDs because we know that they're safer; they consume less energy and you're going to spend less money,” Paventi said.
LED lights can also be added to traditional illuminated plastic lawn statues, like those that make up Keeler’s 13 nativity scenes. When a bulb burns out, Keeler said he replaces it with an LED. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, LED bulbs last 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs.
Yard inflatables, another Christmas decoration staple, also consume a lot of power. Keeler’s inflatables include a 16-foot Santa and 15-foot Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. These decorations require a pump and motor to keep them inflated. A large inflatable snow globe uses about 150 watts per hour, according to National Grid. An animated inflatable requires more power, about 200 watts. That’s roughly more than double the hourly power needed to operate a 55-inch LED TV. Keeping an inflatable on for about 15 hours each day can cost about $19 per month.
“When you see, you drive past a yard where you're seeing three, four, five inflatables running, I'm thinking, wow, those people are really into the holidays because they're going to see their bill down the line,” Paventi said.
Keeler said he has yet to find an energy hack for those.
When shopping for holiday decorations, Paventi recommends looking for options that are Energy Star certified. These products are guaranteed to be the most energy efficient.
Beyond the light displays, there are additional ways to be more energy efficient. Using a timer can help prevent you from forgetting to turn off the holiday lights and wasting energy. Some timers can be set automatically from a smartphone.
Power strips are commonly used for plugging in decorations, but a standard strip continues to consume energy even when devices are switched off, according to National Grid. There are power strips that are specially made to cut power to devices that are plugged in, but switched off. As a general practice, Paventi said unplugging devices and appliances that are not in use can save up to 10% annually.
There’s also the option of still going all-out, but without using any electricity at all by opting for non-electric or solar-powered decorations.
“ We all love holiday decorations. We all love driving around and seeing houses all lit up in the unique ways and the crazy ways people really dive into the holiday,” Paventi said. “There is a cost to the holiday spirit.”
