Do you keep your Christmas tree lit?

Same. If I’m awake and home, it’s on. As are my outside lights and jumbo inflatable snowman.

No, not during the day. Too much danger of fire if the tree dries out.

If I’m home, it’s on. It’s a fake, pre-lit tree and the lights are LED, so I don’t have as much fire danger. I find it to be cheery, too!

No tree here, but there are several strings of lights in various places in the apartment.
Most of them are LED strings and I don’t mind having them on any time we are home.
The one big incandescent set only goes on after dark when we’re home.
If we’re gone, or sleeping, they’re all off.

No need. It burns by itself.

If I had an Xmas tree, I’d use LED lighting. I’d keep it lit during the dark, when I was home and awake.

The only time they are turned off is at bedtime or if no one is home. I always turn them back on first thing in the morning.

No tree. No lights. Nothing to clean up when the big day, which I don’t celebrate, is over. I still enjoy the enthusiasm of the season and the annual hope for peace. I wish that was celebrated all year ‘round. Peace, good will to all mankind. Amen.

When I put a tree up the lights are on if I am in the room.

We keep them on if at least one person is awake and at home. We turn them off when everyone goes to bed and when everyone leaves for the day.

We pretty much have to keep them on when we’re home, because the Christmas tree is connected to the same power strip that the cable box is connected to, so if we want to watch TV we have to keep the tree on!

Ours is on a constant blink, it has several cycles a couple of which i’m sure are designed to make you go insane. They blink way too fast, reminds me of that fucking dreadful song from Halloween III, “silver shamrock…make it stop!

I don’t think it was the Christmas tree lights that made you go insane, @ucme.

Whey-hey…I fed you that line & by gum, you took it, ya cheeky bugger.

I admit, I have fallen asleep on the couch and left everything on all night a few times.

In the interests of health & safety, I feel it necessary to add to my earlier post..up there look…that our tree is switched off & unplugged when we all go to bed for the night, to do otherwise is just plain dangerous, surely.

LED lights and some LED candles that have built in timers, on for 8 hours, off for 16. I love the lights, and keep them on from sundown till bedtime. The timer driven candles seem to meet that scheduling beautifully, so next year I’ll plug all the switched lights into a timer as well. It’s kind of neat when they all just flicker on as the room darkens.

We’ve been leaving ours on all the time. Too much of a pain to plug it and unplug it, since the plugs are all hiding behind large pieces of furniture. Anyway, it’s nice to have them on all the time.

@ucme Sounds like health and safety GONE MAD, to me.

Oh yes. I like the tree to be lit up, even at night.

I do hear what @ucme is saying about safety. Make sure you buy lights that meet your countries safety regs. There are cheap imports that have caused house fires.

It feels like it is wasting money and energy. I am the voice of my father and it drives my husband crazy. Lol Turn the tree on!

@bkcunningham I hear your father, but honestly, the new LED lights use a tiny fraction of energy. Their cost can be measured in pennies per year.

If I had a tree I would have it on in the evening if I were in the room it is in, or was going to pass by it a reasonable number of times.

^^ How many would be a reasonable number of times?

I unplug all the lighted decorations, the tree, the candy cane, the village and the wreath when I go to bed and plug them all in when I get up. I plug in the outside lights when it is dark, which has been all day the last couple of days, because of the weather.

@cookieman I would need to be up and about. If I was just sitting in the family room and the tree was in the living room and I would only see it if I got up to go to the bathroom I wouldn’t keep it on probably. But, if I was up doing things around the house and could see it over in the other room or was going back and forth then yes. If I had children it would more likely be on all evening assuming there is more commotion in the house in general. But, if I had a tree I would want it to be where I spend most of my time in the evening, and so it would likely be on. I have friends who have two trees every year, one at the foyer or formal living room, I wonder if they bother to leave that one on?

Generally I am afraid of fires and don’t like to waste electricity. But, I understand the lights don’t use much electricity.

@JLeslie: Ah, I see.

@bkcunningham The LED lights on our tree save turning on a 2-lamp chandelier that uses 400 watts of incandescents with a dimmer. I haven’t replaced them with energy efficient lighting because standard CFLs die almost instantly on a dimmer. They have brutally expensive CFLs that will work with a dinner, but they hardly dim at all. For a fraction of what that chandelier costs to run, the tree’s miserly LEDs light the whole room.

@glacial Each to their own seems to be the order of the day here.

In the evening and then turn it off at night EXCEPT for xmas eve and all day Christmas day and night. Then people tend to neglect turning it on until New Years.