As long as the lights are straight, it’s ok. And there’s not a short line running from the eaves to the bushes. And there’s not just a zig-zag of lights in the bushes because you only put one strand in them. Yes, I’m a little OCD, why do you ask?
As for colors, I like hot pink, but only because they’re tacky.
Agreed, white lights are the only way to go.
The only thing that looks better (for people not worried about burning down their house) is candles on the tree.
A friend of my family does it. It looks spectacular but you, obviously, have to watch the tree like a hawk. Doesn’t make for a particularly relaxing holiday.
There is a section of trees here right up near the border between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti that is decorated with the best looking Christmas lights I’ve ever seen. Silver (with maybe a hint of blue) would be the only way to describe them. They’re up on the trees in front of the Chili’s over there. I usually don’t care much either way about Christmas decorations, but I gotta get me some of those silvery-blue lights.
Back in my hometown I remember seeing folks decorate the trunks of big old 50-100 ft. tall trees. The lights only go up about 10 ft. or so, so it’s just a big, cylindrical light formation, no branches or anything. Very tacky.
I wish i could find some PURE white ones. Like LEDs or something. I am still amazed i cannot seem to find any red and green ones alternating. I mean they are chrismas colors! I think i am going to buy a few strands and make my own.
I prefer colored. And they should twinkle. Not blink on and off all at once, but twinkle.
But white’s okay, too, if you’re a subdued, boring kind of person.
I’m going to start calling them fairy lights as a defense against people who think they’re a Christian symbol.
I prefer all white, but I don’t mind colored, as long as they’re small (many people around here still seem to use the ginormous 70s variety, which pretty much epitomize “tacky” to me) and don’t blink. Man, I hate the blinking.
There was a house down the street from me that for years decorated with all red lights. It looked like a bordello in hell.
I’m not too picky about my Christmas lights–as long as they’re not all haphazard, it’s cool with me. Except:
(1) LEDs: The shine just isn’t right. Some colors (blue especially, I’ve noticed) start looking really strange.
(2) Net lights: Put in some effort! Every time I’ve seen these they look like exactly what they are–a net of lights thrown hastily over a bush. I dunno, maybe I don’t notice them when they’re used well, but IMO you haven’t decorated the bush if you don’t have sap and pine needles in your hair and lights evenly distributed throughout its volume.
White lights are too cold and elegant to have a Christmasy feeling to me. Also, so many houses are white-lights-only in my neighborhood. I don’t want to conform.
Our house is decorated in big candy-colored seventies-style bulbs. And yes, they’ll still burn the dickens* out of your fingers if you touch them.
*Christmas pun
Uh oh.
White lights are the only way to go — provided you are a banquet hall, shopping center, or municipal building! But for anywhere that real people live - its gotta be colored (or is that African-American? Didn’t look at the link upthread for black lights.)
Our house has long had multi-colored both inside and out. For the past few years my wife has made comments asking, “Don’t those white lights look nice?” To which I have lovingly responded, “NO!”
Apparently last year one of her lazy friends tossed out a tree with several strands of brand new white lights on it, which my wife proceeded to pick out of the garbage. So this year she asked, “Should we put out the colored or white lights this year.” Well, the colored ones are out there, but I can sense this is a battle I am ultimately going to use.
Personally , not a fan of any of the solid colored schemes. Blue, red, green, or white. And if you are going to use those “nets”, try to arrange them so that they aren’t so clearly just draped on the bushes.
But what I think looks the worst is when someone just puts up all different kinds of lights - maybe the one or two remaining strands of each year’s purchase. A strand or two of icicles, some chasers on on tree, and a couple of strands of large colored bulbs, and a row of bushes with small white lights. Pick one - at most two - types and stick with them.
But all in all, I figure there is no such thing as bad x-mas lights.
snort I would pay to see this.
We have multicolored on the tree inside and will have multicolored outside. We don’t like (read I will not allow) single color lights on our tree or the bushes outside, and they DO NOT BLINK. Every year husband says something silly like, “Let’s get some maroon lights (or some such nonsense) and really make a statement!” I counter with, “What statement? That we’re insane? Go get the regular lights out and get to work.” Then we have a drink. It works for us.
Oh - he HATES the icicle lights - they are just stupid looking. And we don’t do the “light net” - it takes all of ten seconds to put a real string on the bushes out front - the netting looks goofy.
All white is fine, as is all blue, or all any one color. The multi colored strings are just wrong though.
Edit: except red, after reading DianaG’s post. That sounds horrible.
White isn’t ugly, but it *is *boring. It gives the houses a flat appearance that is especially unattractive when the entire neighborhood is also white. Color makes things stand out.
I like just about all Christmas lights – but I agree with the OP that the white lights that are more of a yellowish color aren’t as nice. I like very crisp, very white lights.
I especially like the white lights after a heavy snow, when you are seeing the glow from the lights under the snow, it’s such a Christmasy look.
In my own house, I like to mix it up from year to year.
I only like white lights. Multi-colored lights drive me nuts, though they are more tolerable if you only choose one or two colors.
LED based white, BTW, avoids the yellowish light you don’t like. LED’s are more blue-white. Just don’t mix LED and incandescent white! That’s worse than multi-color.
Okay, I just trimmed my whole roof line, porch and garage with ‘clear’ C9 lights. C9 lights are the big ‘old fashioned’ bulbs, not the little twinkly ones that go out (sometimes just half the strand) and make you want to kill someone. The C9’s have the old heavy cord, and each light gets it’s on roof clip, so they all line up nicely.
Clear lights are more reminiscent of a Victorian Christmas, and being Italian and married to an Italian, white (clear actually) lights are compulsory.
A trick is to mix in greens via garland and some bows. The lights do not have to be the whole show. Properly done, when one looks at a house trimmed in clear lights, they should see plenty of green and another color via bows.
A good tastefull, strong wreath on a proper door, good use of garland and good old fashioned clear/white lights scream Christmas.
Multicolored lights are, to me, one step away from plastic Christmas trees, silver tinsel and astroturf.
I totally agree about the red. I saw a house last night that had small red lights in all the bushes and a red flood light illuminating the house. Made me think more “Halloween” than traditional winter holidays of one’s chosing.
I do all white on the exterior and multi colored lights on the tree. At no point may any of them blink. This year I did get giant bulbs for the porch, but they’re spherical and remind me of antique light bulbs. Our porch is huge, so the scale works well.
My MIL had some “blinking” white lights on her tree, but they very slowly faded in an out at random. So slowly that you had to stare for a minute to see the change. It was hypnotic and very pretty.
Around here white lights seem to be the choice of the middle-to-upper class suburbs, but I think colored lights can look very elegant as long as they are used sparingly. Frankly it’s a bit boring to drive along the lakeshore and see nothing but white lights.
A house near us has all blue lights outside, including blue icicle lights. It looks like a seafood restaurant.
I also can’t stand the chaser lights. One house I saw had them all over, racing across the roof, down the sides, around the windows and doors then back up to start again. It was a demented movie marquee.
And I am absolutely sick to death of the dancing lights. First time I saw the video I thought, “Wow, that’s cool!” The next time I saw it (and it’s imitators by the scores) all I could think of was electrical bills from hell and carolers collapsing on the front lawn from photosensitive epilepsy.
YES. And don’t make it look like you threw them on the bushes because it was mothereffing cold outside and you couldn’t be arsed to do it right. Spread the lights out evenly. You can do it!
I prefer white lights outside and colored lights on the tree. The only time the white icicles lights look good is when we have what I call Swiss snow–the huge snowfalls that leave mounds of snow on the eaves and smother the lights. When those lights light up the snow at night–gorgeous. But realistically, how often do we get that kind of snow?
I like twinkling lights too–but I can’t find them in the stores.
Around my neighborhood, there’s a meaning behind the lights.
The Hanukkah decorations are common around my neighborhood, where it transitions from an area that is predominantly Jewish to one that is more ethnically and racially mixed. Head south into neighborhoods that are heavily Jewish, though, and you’ll find holiday decorations of any kind are uncommon.