Which are the prettiest garden lights you know? The cheapest and easiest to install? No electrician needed, and a fraction of the cost of other garden lights? Which can make a grown man go 'wow' and 'ah' when you switch them on?
The little miracles, which can do all of this, are...outdoor fairy lights.
But here's my question - why, knowing all of this, do we only allow these hard working bundles of pure magic into our garden for one month of the year?
Why, just in the most miserable month of all - January - do we insist on taking them down and putting them away? Why can't we go 'wow' for the whole of January, and February and even March, or any month of the year we please?
I want to encourage you to stand up for fairy lights, free them from their shackles and let them shine all year. To help you find the nerve here are some helpful tips.
It does take some mettle to get away with the coloured ones or the twinkly ones in March, so let's put some clear blue water between our new movement and Christmas decorations. Go for white or even better warm white for a classy look that will still look great in May. Hide them along the borders, wrap them around plants or string them over a seating area and let their lustre linger longer.
I know I'm on to something here because in the past couple of years retailers have recognised the obvious appeal of fairy lights and realised there's a market for them all year round.
They are moving away from the intimate connection between fairy lights and Christmas lights - online suppliers now have dragonflies and butterflies, strings of Chinese lanterns and even tiny chandeliers to hang around your garden. So if the plain fairy lights are too entwined with Christmas for you, try these new twists.
There's an added benefit. If you are planning to keep you 'Christmas' lights up all year it becomes worth investing in more and better lights - you'll get more use from them. So when you're buying your outdoor lights - think longer term, think big, think about creating something beautiful in the garden that will give pleasure for years, not weeks.
I also think a little rebranding could help their image. I think we need to change their name from Christmas lights to ... well, not fairy lights because that will alienate lots of men. Let's call them pea lights, or string lights, or ..... let's just call them what they actually are: magic in a box.
To see how lights could brighten up your garden this winter, and all year round, check out the huge amounts of lights available online. Here's three good sites to get you started:
www.glow.co.uk
www.lights4fun.co.uk
www.ldj-lights.co.uk
For more ideas about how to decorate your garden, at Christmas and beyond, see my course on Decorating Your Room Outside at MyGardenSchool.