CONCORD - As Mrs. Claus at the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Concord, Marie Foley has an obligation to be jolly. But this year, Foley admits, she was not as happy as she pretended to be when Santa flipped the switch to the Christmas lights on the town's 75-foot blue spruce.
"I faked it," she confessed. "I said, 'Oh, my God. Isn't this beautiful?' "
But deep down, Foley was troubled by what she saw. The tree, though towering and flanked by carolers, seemed somehow less festive, somehow less bright. Gone was the warm, yellow glow of incandescent lights. And in their place, the icy, bluish hue of energy efficient light-emitting diodes.
LEDs, they are called. And they should have pleased the environmentally conscious souls of Concord, where the green thinking runs deep. But some in town this year are dreaming of Christmas pasts, back before the local tree went dim.
"When the tree went on, it wasn't like this 'Oooooh!' kind of a feeling," said Stephanie Stillman, the executive director of the Concord Chamber of Commerce, who has been fielding complaints from merchants in recent days. "There were some people who just kind of weren't sure that the tree had been lit, and there were some comments. They just didn't like the new lights as much as the old ones."
LEDs are the hot holiday decorative item this year, and a feel-good story to boot. The lights consume about one-tenth the electricity as traditional lights, and are far more durable, too, lasting for as long as two decades.
And homeowners are not the only ones scooping them up this Christmas. Governor Deval Patrick is using 5,000 LEDs to light up the tree on the State House lawn. LEDs festoon the White House tree and the Rockefeller Center tree in New York City. And a few local communities - looking to save money and save the Earth - are buying LEDs this Christmas as well.
In Randolph, the chamber of commerce is testing LEDs this year with its downtown display and hopes to be able to afford the roughly $6,000 cost of upgrading its entire display next year. In Belmont, town officials have converted half of the downtown display to LEDs, buying 6,000 feet of the super-efficient lights this year. And next year, the town plans to buy 6,000 more, converting its entire display over the course of two Christmases, said Tim Richardson, Belmont's municipal light department manager.
In Concord, however, the change came all at once. And while Concord selectwoman Virginia McIntyre said switching to LEDs was a "no-brainer" both economically and environmentally, town officials have learned a Christmas lesson this year: For some, visions of sugarplums are best when illuminated as brightly as possible.
"The reviews are mixed," said Christopher Whelan, Concord's town manager. "I think environmentalists will be pleased that we made an effort to reduce our consumption, especially in a manner that's so conspicuous. But they're clearly not as warm and soft as the lights we've used for decorations in the past. They're definitely not as bright. So there's a little bit of glow off the garland."
Concord stakes a claim to being green. The town has a new sustainable energy committee. In recent years, townspeople have launched a campaign to remove almost 300 street lights in town to save energy and reclaim the night sky. And once, officials even talked about taking more drastic Christmastime measures, so focused were they on reducing their carbon footprint: no lights at all.
"But we thought that was a little too bah-humbuggy," said McIntyre.
Using LEDs, on the other hand, struck town officials as a great idea. Last Christmas season, Concord consumed 13,000 kilowatt hours of electricity and the electric bill was about $1,200, according to Dan Sack, the superintendent of Concord's light plant.
By using LEDs, Sack estimated, electricity consumption would fall by 80 percent and the annual cost would be around $200. The cost of the new lights - about $8,000 - would be paid off in four to eight years, depending on rates, according to town officials. So they made the purchase, hung the lights on the tree and the streetlamps downtown, and waited for Santa's arrival, by fire truck, on Dec. 6 for the tree lighting ceremony.
Right away, people noticed a difference.
"They're not bright enough,"' said Foley, the general manager at Concord Hand Designs, a downtown store. "You don't notice they're there. I guess that's the main issue - you don't see them at all. So you don't get a feeling of a Christmasy town."
Some merchants are so upset, Stillman said, that she has asked municipal light plant officials if the town might consider using the old incandescent lights next Christmas - at least on the tree.
But town officials are happy with what they have done, and so are many residents. Bill Barber, who has lived in Concord since 1977, said it is time the town started using energy efficient Christmas lights "whether we like it or not." Paul Denisevich, who owns Helen's Restaurant in downtown Concord, said anything that helps the environment is worth trying. And Whelan said people should get used to the town's slightly different holiday look.
In time, townspeople say, critics of the new lights will get used to basking in the glow of holiday diodes. New traditions, Stillman said, can be just as important as old ones. And a certain important Christmas demographic does not seem to have noticed the difference at all.
Of all the complaints that Stillman has received about the lights, not one has come from a child.
Keith O'Brien can be reached at kobrien@globe.com.
