Christmas lights, like Christmas decorations, don’t come with a guidebook on how to install them to make the most beautiful and standout effect.
As a result, there are lots of ways you can decorate with Christmas lights, from ridge lighting to tree wraps to simply using them to embellish your Christmas greenery.
Here are some common questions and answers about mixing colors and color temperatures that we will cover here.
Enjoy getting creative with different colors to bring some life to your home this holiday season! quick guide will show you some high-level tips so you can create a display that really impresses!
What Christmas Light Colors Go Together?
There are some lights that go together naturally, and will look better together than others, and there are some light combinations that you may not want to pair together.
To make things simple, white lights (both cool and warm white lights) go with basically all Christmas decorations.
With that said, whites also pair well with other colors. For instance, white and red lights can be used to create a “candy cane” effect. This combination looks great with the Christmas decorations in our Peppermint Collection!
Blue and white also look beautiful together, especially cool white and blue lights, which give an “icy” feeling to the setting. These are great for snow-themed decorations, too, like the ones in our White Christmas Collection. White and blue lights also look great with the finds in our Blue Christmas Collection.
You can also look at complementary colors, which look beautiful when paired with each other. The most common complementary pairing is red and green, which is just made for Christmas!
Red and green Christmas lights will look good in pretty any setting, but they are especially compatible with the predominantly red, gold, and green aesthetic of our Classic Christmas Collection. Our Traditional Collection, which is also largely composed of red and green decorations, accents and ornaments, is also naturally complemented by red and green lights.
Warm white and gold lights will also look nice when paired with the decorations in our Natural Elegance Collection, which is full of decor that’s white, gold-tone, and pearlescent.
Remember that Christmas is not the only time of year that you can use Christmas lights to decorate your home! Halloween is another great time to decorate with lights; during the spooky season, consider the use of orange, green, and purple lights to create some eerie ambiance!
Color Temperature and Your Other Christmas Decorations
One thing to keep in mind when decorating with white Christmas lights is that not all white lights are the same. They’re different in terms of color temperature.
Color temperature refers to how warm or cool a white light feels. White lights with a very warm color temperature will look almost yellow, whereas cool white lights will look almost blue.
Warm color temperature works best with warm colors, such as yellow, gold, orange and red. On the other hand, cool white lights work best with Christmas decorations that are mostly cool-colored, such as blue, white, dark green, silver, and even clear crystal.
Can You Mix Cool White and Warm White Christmas Lights?
Warm white lights will look best with warm colors and cool white lights will look best with cool colors, but that doesn’t mean you can’t combine the two if the setting or occasion calls for it.
The best way to mix warm and cool white Christmas lights without making it look jarring is to make sure the color temperature is similar, and not too starkly different.
For instance, extremely warm white lights that are almost yellow will not look the best next to lights that are so cool they almost look blue.
But you can still get away with mixing and matching different color temperatures in the same room, depending on how you weave them through your Christmas greenery or use them to accent your other decorations.
Shop Christmas Lights at Decorator’s Warehouse: Your BEST Christmas EVER Starts Now!
All that’s left for you to do to pull off a stunning, showstopping Christmas light display is to complete your vision and get and install the lights.
There are so many different ways to go. Once you’ve gotten inspired, let your creativity take the reins and when the display is complete, share it on your socials and tag us with @decoratorswarehouse for a chance to be featured!