Vintage Christmas light installation for 2024-2025

[@themaritimegirl]

Errata: The Noma Heritage light set was sold for two years, 2019 and 2020, and I bought mine in 2019. Also, it looks like I'll be busting out both Noma Heritage sets for the first time this year! Mom's tree is going to be multi-color instead of white for the first time in several years, but she doesn't have her multi-color mini lights anymore, so I'm going to use those, plus a few bubble lights. So there may be an addendum video to come yet.

[@vwestlife]

I just stared at the ceiling for half an hour, and I enjoyed it.

[@themaritimegirl]

@@vwestlife Me every day after work

[@arthurvanparijs6121]

46:29 There's just something weirdly comfy about watching someone talk about something mundane for 48 minutes! Great video, I enjoyed it!

[@matthewbuick373]

Thanks for showing off your Christmas light! They look lovely, and it's so encouraging to hear that the modern LED replicas pay such faithful homage. Your nostalgia for the lights sounds similar to mine for Pifco lanterns here in Britain, which went on the tree, not the house. As lovely as they look, they were a fire risk. Hopefully they'll be faithfully replicated one day as they currently sell for up to £250.

[@ROMCat1952]

Now I'm tempted to dig into the Santa Closet and see what light strings I can unearth.

[@probnotstech]

Hey now, there's dozens of us Christmas-light weirdos out there :) I remember playing with a set of C7 bulbs as a Christmas-light obsessed kid that were extremely fragile. If you bumped a bulb too hard, the filament would fail in a similar way to what you described - it would partially short the filament and glow incredibly bright before failing spectacularly enough to blacken the inside to a mirror finish. You could kill a bulb with three flicks of the finger - normal, bright, brighter, burnt.

[@rs12official]

@@probnotstech I got a new old stock 1988 set of C7 transparent lights to use on my tree this year. I put it on my tree and didn't like the way it was positioned at first, so I took it off and put it back on. While I was taking the set off my tree, the fuse blew because of a loose or burnt out bulb. I had to run out to Ace Hardware to get a new fuse! There are also four original bulbs that burned out within a day or two of installation, they now have that shiny finish you describe inside. These sure are fragile lights, particularly when manipulating them while plugged in. To be fair, that particular set that I have has been shipped in the mail in addition to sitting around for the past 35 years, and the bulbs it came with don’t seem to have particularly strong filaments, but still…

[@FeliciaByNature]

Vintage lights are awesome.

[@braidenv]

Dreaming of the day people switch from monochromatic blue to tru tone like Christmas lights 💭 Nice use of the drop ceiling, how convinient to hang them that way!

[@themaritimegirl]

@@braidenv Living under a drop ceiling has made my life so much easier lol

[@Lachlant1984]

Oh, how truly beautiful, I love the colours. So lovely. They look amazing.

[@mdmusic]

Love this install! As much as I’m not an LED fan, those Tru-Tone bulbs got me hooked! Looks like the company really cares to provide that vintage feel of their incandescent counterparts, so it would be interesting to give them a go some day :)

[@dysfunctionalwombat]

Really enjoyed the video and the lights! I miss the lights my grandparents had on their christmas tree as a kid, they were two tone bulbs where the top half of the envelope would be dyed one color and the bottom half another, I haven't even been able to find that such a thing even existed anymore but I really miss them. If someone like Tru-Tone made them I would buy them at any cost. (I also apologize, my patreon donation lapsed and I didn't realize)

[@themaritimegirl]

My grandparents had the two-tone mini lights too! Each bulb actually had two filaments. I've looked for them too, with no success. I appreciate your support very much - thank you!

[@dysfunctionalwombat]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers those two tone bulbs. I wasn't sure if I was just imagining it after a certain point.

[@Lachlant1984]

I'd consider buying some of those strings from you, thing is though, if I do and I plug them in, the bulbs will probably produce a brief flash, then they'll start doing things they shouldn't like making banging noises and detonating and spraying glass everywhere, yes, I live in a country that uses 240 volts AC.

[@44CT232]

I seem to one of the few people that don't mind modern LED Christmas lights that much, although I can see why people find them a bit garish (particularly the blues and cold whites). The modern lights designed to emulate the vintage ones as closely as possible are really cool though, and I enjoyed Technology Connections' videos on them. Also, that place is giving me major gay nightclub vibes - I like it 🙂

[@VintageTVMemories]

I just bought a couple boxes of the big c7 light sets LAST WEEK! Twinsies! They look great in your abode, btw! Merry Christmas!

[@rs12official]

Man, those GE ceramic-coated blues are so good! That shade of blue is just so delicate and pretty.

[@ChrisJackson-js8rd]

I strung some lights up in my bedroom maybe 7-8 years ago and never took them down since i like the dim warm light when I'm getting ready for bed theyre white LEDS with different coloured tinted shades kinda like the incandescent ones it's a way better effect than coloured LEDs because every colour is the same intensity i cant stand blue LEDs at all - they give me terrible migraines

[@Lachlant1984]

You spoke of the white bulbs, are those bulbs frosted? I assume they are. Did these C7 Christmas lights ever get produced in clear variants?

[@themaritimegirl]

They are painted white. Clear C7 lights are a thing, although I don't see them in the wild. Tru-Tone sells them.

[@eDoc2020]

The old string that my family has is all clear C7 bulbs.

[@richardfunk2106]

hi you can get c7s and c9s plastick led bulbs on line and some stores

[@themaritimegirl]

Sure, if that floats your boat.

[@Jon-hx7pe]

Give them some 240V AC! Make things more bright and interesting.

[@themaritimegirl]

@@Jon-hx7pe For a few seconds anyway :P