Has modern lighting ruined the look of Christmas?

Energy-efficient LEDs have transformed how we decorate our homes over festive period

- by David McLean

At the risk of being labelled a festive killjoy, I have come to believe that modern LED lighting has quietly ruined Christmas.

Stay with me on this: this is not an anti-technology rant. I am not yearning for the return of coal fires, asbestos insulation or television sets that weighed more than the unit they sat on.

I simply miss the incandescent fairy lights of Christmas past. What was once a season defined by warmth, softness and restraint is now lit up in the style of a police interrogation room.

Of course, the commercial case for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is impossible to deny. They are cheap to manufacture, use very little electricity and can last for years. Compared with the old incandescent bulbs of childhood, they are astonishingly efficient. As a result, people can now decorate with abandon. Entire houses are wrapped, top to bottom, in lights. Gutters glow. Bushes shimmer. The average British semidetached can be made visible from low Earth orbit for less than £100, courtesy of The Range or B&M.

Modern LEDs tend towards harsh blues, acid greens and stark whites that would not look out of place on the back of a gaming PC

And yet, somewhere in this arms race, the atmosphere has been lost.