When Your Pre-Lit Christmas Tree Lights Don’t Work

I knew it was coming.  My trees are a few years old and are pre-lit with incandescent lights, not LED lights, so I knew the day was coming when my lights would go out.  In fact, last year I replaced so many lights on my big tree that I just couldn’t do it anymore.  I put her back up in the attic knowing that I would have to figure it out this year.  Sure enough, she came out of the attic about the same way I put her in – not working.  In addition, my other tree that goes in the family room had light issues as well.  Here is my big tree fresh from the attic.

Like I do every year, I got work with my Light Keeper Pro.  If you have a pre-lit tree and don’t have a Light Keeper Pro, you should get one now.  It has saved so many lights over the years.  Anyway, I did manage to get some lights working with the Light Keeper Pro and I replaced as many burned out lights as I had replacements on hand.  I knew I wasn’t going to get every light working on both trees, so I decided I would try out adding additional lights to my trees.  I certainly didn’t want to throw these trees away and start from scratch.  They were so expensive when I bought them and I considered a real tree, but I wouldn’t be able to put that up as early.  So, more Christmas tree lights was my solution.  Here is how it went.

FAMILY ROOM TREE

I started with the tree in the family room.  She was in better shape than my big tree, but had some outages as well.  I bought two strands of the best LED lights around.  I found them at Holiday Warehouse in Plano and I have shopped other stores and online and I cannot find anything comparable.  These lights have 1,000 LED lights per 75 feet which makes the lights super close together.  Obviously this just means less wire and more lights.

Here is my family room tree with one strand of lights on the top half of the tree.  You can see what a difference it makes when you compare the top half with the bottom half.

Here she is with two strands of lights which is 150 feet and 2,000 additional Christmas lights.  This is a 7 foot slim tree.

MY BIG CHRISTMAS TREE

My big Christmas tree is a 12 footer and she has a full figure.  I wasn’t sure how many strands of Christmas lights I would need, but I bought 5 strands and used them all.  So, if anyone is counting, that’s 375 feet and 5,000 additional lights.  I may actually grab another strand for next year.  I mean really, you can’t have too many lights.

LIGHT COLOR

I was wondering if adding a whiter LED light to my pre-lit trees with a more yellow incandescent light would look okay and with all the ornaments and decorations on, I don’t even notice it.  It just makes for a much brighter Christmas tree.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Here are my trees fully decorated last year without additional lights and this year with additional lights.  Can you tell a difference?

Light Keeper Pro

You’ll have to head to Plano, TX for these lights and stop by Holiday Warehouse because they aren’t online.

Holiday Warehouse

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