Permanent vs. Holiday Lighting: What's the Difference (and What It Costs)

"Landscape lighting" gets used as a catch-all term, but permanent lighting and holiday lighting are two different products, installed differently, priced differently, and solving different problems.

Permanent lighting

Permanent lighting is a fixed, low-voltage LED system — fixtures are wired into a transformer and buried or mounted for the long term. It's built to highlight architecture, trees, and walkways year-round, and most systems now include color-changing capability, so the same fixtures that give you warm-white light every night can switch to team colors for game day or red and green for the holidays.

Because it's a permanent install — trenching low-voltage wire, mounting fixtures, wiring a transformer — it's a bigger job than seasonal lighting, but it's a one-time install. No ladder work every November, no storage bins, no re-hanging the same clips every year.

Holiday lighting

Holiday lighting is a temporary, seasonal install — string lights clipped to the roofline, trees, or shrubs, put up before the season and taken down after. Nothing is wired in permanently; it's designed to come down.

The value isn't just the install — it's not having to get on a ladder yourself, and not having to store, untangle, and test a box of lights every year.

What it actually costs

Neither of these has one fixed price — it depends heavily on the size of the home and how much of it you're lighting. As a general market reference for North Georgia:

• Whole-home permanent lighting typically runs $3,000–$8,000, depending on square footage and fixture count.
• Seasonal holiday lighting is usually priced per linear foot of roofline plus any trees or shrubs, and varies a lot based on height and accessibility.

We haven't published fixed pricing because every home is different — a single-story ranch and a two-story home with steep rooflines aren't the same job. The real number comes from an actual walkthrough, not a generic per-foot estimate applied blind.

Which one makes sense for you

If you want the look every night of the year with the option to switch it up for holidays, permanent lighting is the better long-term value even though the upfront cost is higher. If you just want the house to look good for the holidays without doing it yourself, seasonal lighting — installed and taken down for you — solves that directly without the bigger investment.

Not sure which fits your house? Get in touch and we'll walk the property with you.