The best Christmas light clips

The all-application shape holds C7, C9, mini and icicle strings and mounts to either a gutter lip or under a shingle. If you are buying one clip type for the whole house, this is it.

The clip aisle is confusing because clips are sold by the problem they solve rather than by a spec, and the problems overlap. The all-application shape is the answer to that: a body that hooks over a gutter lip or slides under a shingle, with a gripper that takes a C7 or C9 bulb base as well as a plain wire.

For most houses that is one purchase instead of three. A typical display runs C9 along the gutter, mini string around a porch column and icicles over the garage — three bulb types that would otherwise mean three clip types.

The compromise is real but small. A dedicated C9 gutter clip holds a bulb more rigidly upright than a universal one does, so on a long exposed gutter in wind you will see a bit more bulb rotation. On a typical residential run at typical wind speeds, this is a cosmetic difference.

Count generously. The convention is a clip every 12 inches for bulbs and every 18 to 24 inches for plain wire, which means a 180-foot roofline is about 180 clips for C9. Buy 250. Clips are cheap, a second trip is not, and you will lose some into the gutter.

One thing no clip does: work on a gutter with a solid-top gutter guard. That is a separate problem with a separate answer, and we link it from here because it catches people out every year.

A swivel-and-lock bulb gripper, so the bulb points where you set it instead of where gravity puts it. On a gutter run with mixed bulb types, that control is worth the price difference.

Here is the problem a swivel clip solves. Along a gutter, C9 bulbs should stand straight up. Around a corner and down a rake, they should lie along the line. With a fixed-angle clip you get one of those two and fight the other.

Adams' Deluxe clip has a gripper that swivels and then locks. You set the bulb angle per clip, which means the gutter run stands up and the rake run lies flat, from one bag of clips. On a house with corners, dormers and a garage return — which is most houses — that is the difference between a display that looks installed and one that looks draped.

Adams lists compatibility across mini, C5, C6, C7, C9, C12, G-series globes and rope, which is the widest range on this page. If you run globe bulbs anywhere, this is one of very few clips that grips them properly.

They cost more than a plain universal clip. For a small display the plain clip is fine and we would not upsell you. For a large mixed display where the bulb angle changes several times, the control pays for itself in how the finished run reads from the street.

The dual-leg shingle tab wedges under a shingle rather than gripping a gutter lip. It is the answer when the gutter is covered, capped or absent — the most common mounting problem we see.

About half the mounting questions people have come down to one fact: their gutters have guards on them, and every clip they bought hooks over a gutter lip that is now covered. A solid-top guard, a mesh screen or a helmet-style cover all do the same thing — they remove the lip.

Shingle tabs ignore the gutter entirely. Two legs slide up under the bottom course of shingles and the friction holds; the tab on the front takes a C7 or C9 base. No adhesive, no screws, nothing left behind.

A real limitation, stated plainly: shingles have to have some flex. On asphalt shingles in mild weather this is a non-issue. On a roof that is fifteen-plus years old, or on a cold day below freezing, asphalt shingles get brittle and forcing a tab under one can crack it. Install in mild weather, and if a tab does not slide in with light pressure, stop and use a different method on that section.

Shingle tabs are also the right choice on a roof that simply has no gutter — a detached garage, a porch overhang, a shed. There is nothing else that mounts cleanly there without adhesive.

A universal gutter-and-shingle clip sold 200 at a time. The quantity is the feature — under-buying clips is the most common way an install stalls halfway.

Run the number before you buy clips, because almost everyone under-buys. A 180-foot roofline with C9 at 12-inch spacing is 180 clips. Add the porch columns, the garage return and the ones you will drop into the gutter, and 200 is the realistic order.

Brightown sells the universal gutter-and-shingle shape in 200-packs at a low price per clip. It fits C9, C7 and mini string, and mounts either way up.

The plastic is lighter than the Adams or commercial options, so plan on two or three seasons rather than ten. At this price that is a reasonable trade — but it does mean buying again, which is worth knowing up front rather than discovering in January when they start snapping.

If you want one clip type for a mixed display and do not want to think about it again this weekend, this is a sensible default.

A small, nearly invisible clip sold in the quantity a real house needs. At 25 x 19 mm you see the light, not the hardware.

Daylight is the forgotten half of a Christmas display. Lights are on for maybe eight hours a night and the hardware is visible for sixteen. A large white clip every foot along a dark fascia is a dotted line across the front of the house for the entire month.

SEWANTA's mini clip is 25 by 19 millimeters, which is small enough that from the curb you see the wire and not the clip. On mini string and rope light, where the wire itself is thin, that is the right proportion.

The 400-pack is the right size to buy. A 180-foot roofline at 18-inch spacing for plain wire is 120 clips, and you want spares, and next year you will want more. Buying 100 at a time is how you end up making a second order in the middle of the install.

Do not use these for C9. They are not built to grip a bulb base and the bulb will rotate. Use the all-application or a dedicated C9 clip for socketed bulbs.

A snap-on locking tab rather than an open hook. The wire is captured rather than resting in a groove, which is the difference on an exposed run in a gale.

Most clips hold the wire in an open groove. That is fine, right up until a wind event lifts a section of string out of a run of clips and you have a loop of lights hanging off the front of the house.

A locking clip snaps closed over the wire so it is captured. Kringles' version does this without needing a tool, which is not a given — some locking designs need a squeeze that is awkward at the top of a ladder.

The cost is install time. Two seconds extra per clip across two hundred clips is about seven minutes, which is nothing; the real friction is that the locking action is fiddly in gloves, and you will be wearing gloves.

Our practical recommendation is not to buy these for the whole house. Buy a small pack and use them on the exposed sections — the windward gable, the corners, anything above the second story — and use faster clips everywhere else.