Here's another way to light your home for the holidays

Flameless candles made of real wax glow nicely. The best selling point is you don't have to worry about children, pets or friends who wave their arms dramatically when talking.

And there's no rule that says you can't mix flaming and battery-operated candles in your home.

One place to find the light-emitting diodes or LED wonders is Smith & Hawken. These trees are $24 and $30 each, and they come with timers so they light up when you want them to, without running up and down stairs to turn them on or off.

The company offers other candle styles, too.

Uncle Sam saves you money occasionally

With billions of dollars flying around in bailouts, it might not seem like the U.S. Government is pinching pennies like everyone else these days.

But lighting the national Christmas tree will cost you less this year. That's the word from GE Consumer & Industrial, which donated the design and lights for the tree.

Most of the lights on the tree are LEDs. And it's designed to be even more energy efficient than last year's, which was the first to use LEDs. This was achieved by using smaller, lighter-weight ornaments and eliminating the lighted garland.

Kathy Presciano, who works for GE and designed decorations for the tree, says LEDs last 10 times as long as incandescent lights.

She designed foot-tall, star-shaped ornaments of gold mosaic vinyl over Lexan panels. While each weighs less than 2 pounds, the 140 ornaments do use incandescent lights because of brightness and weight restrictions. One feature is they catch the sun during the day to make the tree look lit when it's not.

The national tree has 37,000 LED lights. Each of the 680, 50-light strings costs 14 cents for electricity for the four-week holiday season. Each state also decorates a tree, and this year they will use LED lights donated by GE.

They'll love it if you show up with these

Who can resist a gift guide that promises fabulous finds under $25?

Domino delivers in its December/January issue.

Here are a few we like: Small stoneware planter you can stick herbs or flowers in for a kitchen counter, $20 from aplusrstore.com (click on gifting); black soap (no artificial dye) molded with the portrait of an elegant lady, $7 from kalastyle.com, and $5 pale green tumblers of recycled glass, bittersco.com.

There are more expensive gifts in the magazine, too. But we don't understand who would pay $58 each for small candles, even if they do smell incredible.