Being lazy, I wanted to find an easier way to hang our Christmas lights than last year. Our house has gutters all the way around, which is a great platform for hanging lights off of. But last year I used a ton of hooks that grabbed onto the inside of the gutter and then held the string of lights. Applying, and later removing, these hooks though is a pain (literally), so I wanted an easier way.

By using ubiquitous office badge clips with attached strips, I created an easy to apply hanging mechanism that goes on, and comes off, easy as pie.

This works great if you have gutters. You may find a way to get it to work without them, but I guess it would depend on your roof.

Step 1: Get Some Office Badge Clips

I got this package at Staples. 10 clips for about $2.50. I also got a couple of packages of 12 clips each from Walmart for a little over $1.50 per package. You might be able to find more bulk packages for cheaper online somewhere.

I hung 5 strings of lights, with 25 lights each, with 30 badge clips. That's 6 clips per string of lights. These are the strings with the large bulbs. Strings with the small bulbs could probably use fewer clips. I also used a few extra badge clips here and there as I went around corners or encountered other obstacles, so get a few extra.

Step 2: Check Your Lights

Don't forget to check your lights before you hang them from your roof. It's a lot harder to change a light bulb when you're standing on a ladder.

See if you can get your dog to help you out.

Step 3: Attach the Badge Clips

Snap the strap part of the badge clip around the string of lights. I put a badge clip close to the male end of the string, and then every five lights after that. That also put a clip at the other, female, end of the string. I quickly realized on my string of lights that I ended up having a badge clip between every red and green light bulb.

You want to have the clip part underneath the strap, and rotated around so that it faces the string of lights. That way, when you attach it to the gutter, the strap goes out over the edge of the gutter and the string of light hangs down in front of the gutter.

Step 4: Hang Your Lights

Now just take your string of lights outside and attach the clips to the gutter. You may find that the badge clips are on backward or something, but it's easy to just unsnap it and turn it around. I moved each badge clip to the middle of the string between the two lights on either side of it. That gave me the most slack for the lights on the gutter.

Then just repeat these steps with the rest of your strings of lights until you're done.

When it's time to remove the lights, I'm just going to leave the badge clips on for next year.

Of course, if you get up there and discover that your gutters are stuffed full of leaves, it might take you a little longer.

Merry Christmas