An Electric Holiday

What powers decorations like giant inflatable snowmen and colorful lights? Electricity! Here’s how these dazzling holiday displays work.

Inflatable decorations like this giant snowman contain an electric fan. Electricity causes the fan to spin, blowing up the inflatable like a huge balloon!

This electric-powered puppet contains motors, gears, and other parts. It can wave, dance, or do other movements according to how it’s built.

Some holiday lights can be adjusted from wherever you are with a phone or a tablet. Bluetooth devices send information with invisible waves of energy called radio waves. Bluetooth-controlled lights can be programmed to blink or change color using an app.

Speakers blast catchy holiday jingles. How? They turn electricity into sound. The electric current powers an electromagnet, which jiggles the internal parts of a speaker. This creates sound vibrations we can hear!

Strings of lights work by carrying an electric current through a wire. This current activates many tiny light sources, called light-emitting diodes (LEDs). These types of lights use much less energy than traditional bulbs.