Holiday home decorations getting more expensive
By Melissa Wirkus
Decorating a home for the holidays
is a tradition that almost every homeowner participates
in over the years.
Whether it is putting up festive lights, decorating
a tree, lighting a menorah or some other tradition,
getting a home ready for
the holidays is fun for everyone.
But decorating your home this year could be a little
less fun for your pocketbook, since the cost of just
about everything is making decorating more expensive.
Decorations themselves are not the only things that
are getting more expensive, but the price of electricity
and fuel has also gone up as well.
A December 7, 2006 article by Sara Schaefer Munoz of
The Wall Street Journal, “O Christmas Tree, How
costly are your branches,” discusses how decorating
is a lot more expensive this year.
There are a variety of factors that are contributing
to making decorating for the holidays more expensive.
“It's getting a little more expensive to put on
a holiday light show in the front yard. The high price
of copper is driving up the cost of some lights by as
much as 25%. Rising energy costs means it takes more
dollars to keep those lights switched on. Higher fuel
prices are also making it more costly to ship items,
especially large decorations such as those popular life-size
blinking Santas.”
“Artificial Christmas trees and tree stands are
more costly, too, as the costs of plastic and steel
have risen. The higher costs are leading some retailers
to cut corners: Some, for example, are skimping on the
number of branches they include in their fake trees.”
Some stores that buy
large quantities of products such as Wall Mart and Home
Depot have been able to keep their prices about the
same this year.
But most other retailers have had to increase the price
of their lights this year when compared to last year.
“The Christmas Light People, a lighting-design
firm based in Tewksbury, Mass., that serves the Northeast,
recently increased light prices by 20%-25%, adding close
to $100 on a typical job. Holiday Lighting Specialists,
a maker of Christmas displays in Tonkawa, Okla., that
ships around the country, has seen material costs rise
three times since January, forcing the company to raise
prices on lights and displays by about 10%. TWI Inc.,
Wichita, Kan., which runs the lighting-design business
LightWorks and the national online retailer LightTheNight.com,
has also bumped up prices some 10% on imported products.”
The price of electricity has also risen around many
parts of the country, so not only does it costs more
to purchase holiday lights, but it also costs more to
run the light displays. These price increases have caused
many homeowners to cut back on their light displays
this holiday season.
“The expense of decorating is hitting yards around
the country. Each year Tony Blore, a homeowner
in Bellingham, Wash., adds another large figure to his
home's holiday light show. The show already involves
35,000 lights and garners letters of appreciation from
neighborhood families. This year, he eyed an animated
Santa climbing a ladder and a nearly four-foot diameter
blinking ball by LightTheNight.com. But he opted for
only the Santa, which cost around $430.”
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