It's beginning to look a lot like ...

On Friday, many of us will queue up before dawn to get the bargains. Some of us will try to sleep off the feast of the day before. Still others will head into the office for a day of coffee breaks.

And then there are those who will put up the Christmas lights. So much is hanging on your decisions. Should they flash, or do that lights-in-motion thing? Just on the roofline, or around every window? What about the bushes? And what color? What color?

Another big decision these days is whether to stick with traditional bulbs, or switch to strings of LED bulbs. According to a 2008 report prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy, a complete shift from traditional incandescent/mini holiday lights to LED strings would be equivalent to the annual electricity consumed by nearly half-a-million homes. Wow. That shift is not going to happen overnight, but it's worth noting that strings of LED holiday lights:

1. consume 80-90% less energy than traditional strings of incandescent/mini lights
2. could last 20-30 times longer, by some estimates
3. burn cooler, radiate less heat and pose less of a fire hazard
4. don't overload the electrical circuits
5. stay lit when an individual bulb burns out, and allow for easy replacement

By one estimate, traditional incandescent Christmas bulbs can cost over $120/month for 10 strings lit 8 hours a day. In comparison, LED strings could run for less than $1 for the same time frame. The LED holiday lights do cost more initially, but depending on your own use of them, these bulbs could survive to be handed down to your children and their children. And so on.

One final question lingers: What about what to do with the old lights?

Here's where I struggle a bit; I want to do the right thing and consume less energy, and the LEDs accomplish that. But I can't stand to just get rid of perfectly good lights that still work. I could always donate them -- but then someone else is still using the electricity and has to deal with disposing of the lights later. I could throw them in the garbage, since my city won't take them for recycling -- but I can't bring myself to do that. So if I replace my Christmas lights with LED strings, the old lights will sit in the front closet until I can figure out what to do with them.

Lucky for me, the Recycling Association of Minnesota, Clean Energy Resource Teams and several corporate sponsors have teamed up to provide an option: I can take my old lights to drop-off sites around the state, where they will be collected and recycled. This video clip from last year explains the program, which seeks to reduce waste and create jobs. This year's goal is to collect 200,000 strands of old lights. In addition to recycling the copper and glass in the lights, taking the traditional lights out of circulation and replacing with LEDs will reduce the kilowatt hours used, and help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the power stations.

The holidays are all about traditions, and lighting up our houses is one that many of us hold dear; by making a switch to LED lights, we can keep tradition burning bright for years to come.