I was driving home from work this evening and a lot of houses now have their Christmas lights up and turned on. I got to thinking about something and realized that I had NO idea about the answer …
Do people in Europe put Christmas lights up outside their homes? How about Australia? Japan?
Or are we Americans just nuts? I’ve just never heard whether or not anybody else in the world got in on the fun. I imagine they do, I just have no verification.
Australia is becoming more accustomed to the decoration thing.
In fact I have for about the last 5 or so years, put up decorations.
Not that the decorations are exactly appropriate what with snowmen, penguins, reindeer, etc, not being really part of the hot summer weather in Australia. I wish I could find some boomers. Some snow white boomers.
And, you only really get to see the light shows after about 9:00pm when it starts getting dark (DST and summer light).
But in my estate there are only 3 houses that have lights up at the moment. Me, the neighbour 2 doors down and the guy across the street.
Oh and my wife thinks I mad, but my two little girls think the front of the house looks wonderful.
In Norway, it’s not uncommon to put plain white lights on outdoor evergreen trees, and you’d swear there was a law requiring every household to put an electric candelabra and/or a star in at least one window of their house or apartment. But that’s about it for most people. Not to say some families don’t do more, but the big US-style light displays are seen as charmingly eccentric or aggressively tasteless, depending on the neighborhood.