I noticed at Lowes this year (and I think last year as well) they sell the GE brand Christmas lights.

What I thought I heard was these are not really GE but made by someone else, but I'm not sure.

However, on the incandescent Christmas lights, it has the String-A-Long trademark, which is a name GE has used for a few decades I think. So these may be real GE, since they bothered to keep that name on the box. The GE LED Christmas lights say "Staybright" on them. They are also selling two packs of GE electric candles, but I didn't look at the bulbs to see if they are GE bulbs or not.

I was going to get some of these, but I missed when they were on sale, last week.

They're made by someone else with permission to use the GE names and trademarks. I'm hoping to get some on clearance after Christmas!

No such thing as "real GE" anymore.
It's just branding license now.

I saw this years "GE" Christmas bulbs, the glass envelope was the same shape as any foreign-made, no-name bulb.
Back when GE first began to make their stuff overseas, they went through the trouble of retaining the bulb shape, unique GE colors and certain other GE-specific attributes. They did this through at least the late-90's.

If you want "real GE" go on eBay and buy NOS GE Christmas lights from the 1980's or earlier. Most of that will be "real GE" even if made in Japan, Korea or Taiwan.