Country music's "Redneck Woman" Gretchen Wilson proudly proclaimed in her first hit single that "I keep my Christmas lights on, on my front porch all year long..."

Well, if you have ever prescribed to that line of thought but have been stung by high electric bills, a new Jackson company could be the remedy no matter who you are and especially if you "ain't no high class broad."I wrote about the company, HolidayLEDs in Sunday's CitPat, which you can now read again in case you missed it.

It's a new eCommerce business run by friends Philip C. Curtis and Mike O'Connor that sells Christmas lights using LEDs rather than standard incandescents. The LEDs come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors, and are just as bright as standard Christmas lights but use substantially less energy.

They do cost more up front, around $20 for one string of lights, compared to $3 or $4 for a string of lights at a big-box store. But they quickly pay for themselves.

The mini-lights, the kind typically used on a standard Christmas tree, use 80 percent less energy. C9 lights, which you might see along a roofline or around a large outdoor display, use 99 percent less energy than traditional incandescents of the same size, Curtis said.

Oh and they have a life expectancy of 50,000 hours. That's about 50 years, unless of course, you keep them lit on your 'front porch all year long.'

What do you think? Is this something you would consider for your tree this year? Would you do it for the cost savings or the positive imapct on the environment, or both?