Just put up the outdoor lights. I should have taken a picture of the bin they were in. The grandkids took them down last year. I have those picture hanger things for cords and similar. Did they use them? Aaarrrrggghhhhh.
The hooks are always up so stringing them after the GREAT UNTANGLEMENT went pretty fast.
Wife likes the look, nice to see when we come home after dark. Soooooo.
This describes my neighbour. Oh, a few lights at the front of his house, but his back yard is a delight. A six-foot tall plywood Grinch is sneaking across the yard, while Max struggles under an equally tall bag of gifts. Both have floodlights trained on them Coloured lights encircle the yard on top of the fences, and various bells and other ornaments drip from strings.
It’s easily visible from the back of my house, and I have let him and his wife know how much I enjoy it. He’s glad to hear that, though he admits that he does it mainly for them, though he also admits that my enjoyment of it is a bonus.
There is a house right at a switch back. Everyone sees it as it’s right in front of you at the turn. It’s known as the ‘headlight’ house. Because everyone’s headlights shine right at it in the turn.
Anyway, a big ass pine tree fell in their yard. So, they decorated it, and put up an evil grinch and gave him an axe. Very cute.
My gf spends three days decorating the house and porches with the stuff that is in the attic. She makes displays of evergreens collected from around our house. Meanwhile I install spotlights that light up various trees around the house.
It looks beautiful and I love it I guess. But the only people other than us who see the “display” are my relatives who come over xmas eve for our Soup Fest, and they’d still be here enjoying soup with us if there were no decorations.
Soup Fest. I love that idea. Oh man - Potato Cheese Chowder, Mulligatawny, and I think I would make tomato soup from scratch. This would take days.
And of course you would need fresh bread. And of course Saltines.
What do serve @kayaker ?
Dammit! Typing on a phone is hard. The intended word was of course “ravening”.
Great riposte though. 
It was originally a one-off idea my gf had for the first xmas we had together. We invited my relatives over and we offered 4 or 5 soups, set up in crock-pots, along with bread, appetizers, etc. My gf ordered mugs from Amazon for everyone. At the end of the evening (actually early xmas morning) there was a dish washing station where you could wash & dry your mug, which was yours to keep!
It was a ton of work,but some soups were made and frozen and others made the day before SoupFest. It was such a hit with my family, that everyone “demanded” a repeat the following year and it has continued since then.
Each year there is an informal vote for the best soup of the year. A Lamb Soup won overwhelmingly one year, a seafood cioppino another year. One year venison chili won hands down, but there were arguments about whether chili was a soup or not.
Which for me means - not to bother. This will be our 21st Christmas in this house. We had a wreath one year (bought from a fund-raiser) and a few times, we had a tree in the big front window. But not only because of the cats - yeah, they have a different idea about trees in the house - since we never do the family thing at our house, it’s just not worth the hassle to me.
Meanwhile, we spend the actual holiday at our daughter’s house or my brother’s house - they decorate, we can enjoy them, I don’t have to clean anything up or wonder what the cats have done now. I suppose that might sound grinch-like. Many years ago, I used to put the electric “candles” in every window, put stuff on the mantel, set up a manger scene, hang stockings, but except for getting a small tree a few years back (hoping my granddaughter would want to decorate it, but she wasn’t much interested) I just don’t bother with decorations either inside or out.
My neighbor has a (underlit) plywood Grinch, but he’s holding a string of lights that he stealing from the roof; they’re straight along part of the gutter & then deviate over to where he’s ‘standing’ in the middle of the lawn. Simple yet very creative!
What a great idea! I’ll suggest that to my neighbour the next time I see him. Thanks!
This, except for me the split is more like 75% for the observers and 25% for myself.
I had a similar conversation with my brother last year. He lives in a gated community where people hire professionals to do their light displays (he doesn’t). Understandably, he feels that most people do it to show off.
Yeah, this is the thing for me. It gets dark so early now around here, and I hate coming home to a dark house. Adding some more lights makes things a bit less dreary. Solstice can’t come soon enough! Hail Sol Invictus!
When I lived in cold country the worst part was shortly after Xmas when everybody turned off their holiday lights in whatever form and then it was dead dark in the neighborhood getting home from work at 5:30 or 6pm. Every night until nearly the equinox in late March.
I often said that if I was emperor I’d mandate they be illuminated from dusk to, say, 11pm, until late enough into spring that sunset was after, say, 6pm.
In small voice:
I like it dark at night.
My Wife got a bee in her bonnet and wanted to clean out a sort of storage area above our living room. That’s great really. I got the extension ladder, she handed stuff down.
One thing was our fake xmas tree. It’s a nice one. About 7 feet. The lights are built in. We don’t do it every year (see reference to extension ladder above).
No ornaments yet, but we might put a few on it.
I did put the angel on top today (my wife has not seen it yet) It’s one of our dogs toys.
So our angel is a stuffed animal. A ‘squeaky toy’ It’s a stuffed fluffy puppy. And it’s perfect. I love it. I believe I’ve started a new tradition in our house.
I’m no etymologist, but i think it need more than 1 day to be a tradition !
And today is another good reason to put up lights. It’s a cold-ish, foggy day with snow on the ground, so everything is just kind of blah shades of grey.
Turn on some colour, damnit!
I turned my lights on at about noon.
Question: Do you decorate your tree? Think about how many people will see that.
Personally, I don’t decorate outside, but that’s primarily because I live in a townhouse on a hill where probably the only place I could put them is on my balcony; it’s more “how few I can put up” than “how few people will see them.” I do put my tree right in front of the sliding glass doors in front of the balcony.
I don’t do them, because they’d interfere with my menorah. But who cares who sees them - you do if you like them.
I walk around my neighborhood each December I’m here looking at lights. It strikes me that some of the nicest and most elaborate lights are at the ends of cul do sacs or on houses which don’t get much through traffic. The owners must like them and I do too.
Nope. My wife can’t reach the top of the tree. Call it a new tradition I suppose.