How to Choose the Best Colors for Your Christmas Lights
Every autumn, the same question echoes across the Omaha metro: warm white or multicolor? It feels like a small decision until December, when your house is glowing that color every single night. The good news is there's a designer's logic to it — and once you know how color interacts with your home's exterior, the choice usually makes itself.
Should you choose warm white or multicolor?
Warm white is the little black dress of holiday lighting. It's elegant, it photographs beautifully, and it makes architecture — gables, dormers, peaks — the star of the show. If you love the look of a candlelit village, or your home has strong lines you want to trace, warm white is almost always the answer. It's our signature for a reason.
Multicolor, on the other hand, is pure childhood. It says a family lives here, and they are having fun. Multicolor works especially well on homes with simple rooflines, because the color itself provides the visual interest. If your kids vote every year (and they will), multicolor usually wins the household election.
How does your home's exterior change the answer?
Here's what most people miss: christmas lights don't glow in a vacuum. They glow against your brick, your siding, and your trim, and those surfaces reflect the light right back. Red brick loves warm tones — warm white, red, and gold look rich against it, while cool blue can feel a little icy. Light-colored siding is the opposite: it's a blank canvas that makes every color pop, including cooler palettes. Dark exteriors — charcoal siding, deep browns — create dramatic contrast with almost anything, but they especially flatter crisp warm white.
Roof color matters too. Because C9 bulbs sit along the roofline, a dark roof makes colors look saturated and jewel-like, while a light roof softens everything by a shade.
What two-color patterns work best in Omaha?
Two-color designs are having a moment across the metro, from Elkhorn to Bellevue. A pattern gives you personality without the visual noise of full multicolor. Our favorites:
- Red and warm white — the candy-cane classic; festive, crisp, and impossible to dislike.
- Red and green — traditional Christmas at full volume, gorgeous on brick.
- Blue and white — a cool, wintry palette that shines on light or gray exteriors.
- Gold and warm white — subtle, glamorous, and lovely on stone and stucco.
Can you mix colors between roofline, trees, and yard?
Absolutely — in fact, the best designs usually do. A common recipe: keep the roofline in a single disciplined color (warm white or a two-color pattern), then let the yard play. Multicolor tree wraps, glowing garland at the entry, and lit pathways add layers of color at eye level while the roofline stays clean and architectural. The result feels designed rather than decorated, and it's a big part of what separates a professional display from a weekend of ladder work. You can see how we think about the whole scene on our holiday lighting page.
How do you preview a color scheme before it goes up?
This is where GlowGetter does things differently. Before we install anything, we create a rendering of your home glowing in the palette you're considering — so you're never guessing how red-and-white will look against your particular brick. One of our Google reviewers, J. Schleff, put it simply: "Sent us a mock up of look and helped us determine final look. So excited for the Holiday season!!!" That's the whole idea. You approve the design first; we hang lights second.
What if you want to change colors every year?
Some homeowners fall in love with one look and keep it forever. Others want candy-cane this year, icy blue next year, and Husker red on game days. If you're in the second camp, it's worth a look at permanent lighting — our Forever Lighting systems offer 16 million colors and true whites from 2700K to 5000K, all from an app. One install, every palette you'll ever want.
Whichever direction you lean, every seasonal package — from Silent Night at $750 to Winter Wonderland at $2,800+ — includes design, commercial-grade LEDs, installation, in-season service, January takedown, and storage. See what fits your home on our pricing page, and book by October 1 to catch the 10% early-bird discount.
Or call or text 531-999-6388. We do the work. You enjoy the wonder.