Christmas lights aren’t about tasteful. They are about light and fun. Christmas lights are about creating an atmosphere to chase away the December blah-it-gets-dark-at-4:30s.
If we didn’t have our house on the market right now, here is what we usually have up.
Front window - 2 strings of icicle lights, with red chili pepper covers on them. Also, a 14" wreath of tri-colored chili pepper lights.
50/50 chance of a decorated tree in the living room, with purple mini-lights on it.
Front yard - 6’ tall palm tree, outlined in green (leaves) and brown (stem) rope lights
4’ long wireframe alligator, outlines in red rope lights (he looks REALLY cool after a snow fall, when he glows through the snow)
Is it sophistacated? Nope. Is it fun? Yep. Do our neighbors think we are crazy? Why do I care? Their cars and their house are color coordinated.
I used to think that the occasional set of white lights looked nice, but nowadays everyone is doing it, and I hate them. And those stupid wire reindeer, too.
I only use colored lights on the tree. White lights completely ruin the atmosphere I’m going for. I don’t put up outside decorations.
All white are nice on a row of leafless deciduous trees. Other than that they’re just ugly.
Flashing multicolored (preferably the kind that cycles through several blinking options) are the best, although I’ll condone non-blinking multicolored for certain outdoor uses.
And they confuse the evil christmas spirits, allowing extra time to arm the family.
My husband has a cool trick–he very carefully winds an all white set around the Christmas tree, way inside near the trunk. And then the rest are all colored. It makes the tree glow–the white backlights the colors in a way. Very cool.
I agree with upthread re pick a style and stick with it. No icicle lights on the eaves, colored on the bushes and old time Charlie Brown type on the pine trees outside.
And can we please just get rid of all the inflatable shit out there? (oops, off topic, sorry).
I need to put out my garland on the porch–green garland, red bows, white lights. It’s purty.
I’ve done that once or twice, and it does look great. Not *quite * great enough to justify washing pine sap out of my hair for the next week, but nearly.
And I’m with you on the ginormous inflatable doodads. Ugh.
Around here people decorate INSANELY for things like Halloween and even Thanksgiving. one house near me had several huge inflatable turkeys…
Anyway, I like white lights for lining the roof of the house, then colored lights in the bushes and trees. I like the net lights if they’re on bushes small enough that you can really wrap the net around it and make it even. If you can still see the rectangular shape of the net you have failed.
I HATE BLINKING LIGHTS. They’re ugly and irritating.
I like white lights in trees outside when they are wrapped around the trunk and branches, so that you see the basic shape of the main branches of the tree–that’s pretty. When you just wind them randomly through the branches so that it looks like a 2 year old’s scribble in light, that’s just ugly. And if you’re going to put the lights evenly throughout the branches (rather than tightly wound on the trunk/branches) then I think colored lights look better.
The icicle lights don’t bother me. I think they’re pretty. I don’t think they look a damn thing like icicles, but that’s just their name after all, it isn’t meaningful beyond that.
White lights aren’t ugly, they’re just boring. And I could do without those inflatable Santas and suchlike that are appearing on all the front lawns now. Those are kind of garish.
Unfortunately, very few people – and none of the big malls around here – are using multicolored lights anymore. I hope they come back into fashion soon.
I love the big teardrop-shaped lights, especially the blinking type, because they were the most popular kind when I was a kid, and they bring back memories of when Christmas was an exciting, magical time, looked forward to for months. A lot more people put up outdoor lights then; nowadays four out of five houses are dark, or just have those balloon things.
That’s how I feel about it. Yes, I’m sappy, but during these long, dark winter evenings (and early mornings) I just love to see lights, I don’t care what color they are or how badly they’re strung.
On the other hand, there is no such thing as good giant plastic inflatable Santas, reindeers and snowpersons.
Gawd, I hate those inflatables. During the day-time all the ones around here are just puddles of fabric on the ground. Looks like crap. Either leave 'em running all the time, or you know, just don’t put 'em up!
I have white lights on the eaves, colored nets on the hedge (pulled around tight), and a pair of animated deer in the front yard with white lights. I’d do more, but getting power out to the other trees would be too much trouble on a year when we’re not really having a lot of company.
I just wish lights came in more colors. Why just pre-school primary colors. Red, blue green, and even orange an purple are rare.
Why not decorator shades, teal, rust, brown and tan?
Y’know, I never thought they looked like icicles, either, until Saturday night. By some freak of meteorological activity, I saw the two side by side. I was standing underneath a restaurant awning - y’know, one of those city ones that juts out onto the sidewalk like a catwalk? Anyhow, there was a row of icicle lights on it, and then a row of actual icicles, made out of ice! They were all perfectly formed, tiny in diameter and mostly the same length, and all exactly 5/8 of an inch apart. I mean, if they hadn’t been dripping before my very eyes, I would have assumed they were crystals or plastic. But the way they caught the moonlight was EXACTLY like the icicle lights next to them - the bumps of ice would twinkle as if there were individual lights, and the narrower parts were dark. It was just gorgeous. A friend took a picture with her cellphone, I’ll have to see if I can get a copy.
I like Christmas lights-- all shapes, sizes and colors. Every year I like to drive around the nearby neighborhoods and admire everyone’s light displays. If I had the right kind of house, the money and the time I’d go all out Griswold-style.
I think the the big screw-in bulbs (C7 and C9) work especially well with older houses- a scene reminiscent of my aunt’s house out in the country whose house was always decorated this way. The mini bulbs are fine for houses, too, but I think they work best on trees. The icicle lights are okay but if I had a house of my own (I live in a townhouse complex) I probably wouldn’t string them up. I imagine they probably get tangled easily when wrapped up into a ball for storage and dealing with this would try my patience. Lights that twinkle independently are the best but you don’t see too many of these. Chaser lights are okay. I don’t care for sets that flash off and on all at once (you don’t see too many of these). If I had to pick a monochromatic scheme I’d go for blue. It’s a “cool” wintry color and its soothing. Those black lights looked really neat but I imagine they wouldn’t be visible from very far away.
I think the new LED lights are cool, too. If you trill your tongue to match the resonant AC frequency (60 Hz, about a Bb/B note for those of you with perfect pitch) the LED lights will appear to waver in your field of vision (your computer monitor will show the same effect in case you want to test it out for yourself).
Their hard to find around here lately, but if you hang them on trees and have a moderate wind going on you can get a similar effect. Or, I assume it is, since I have no idea how to trill my tongue, much less do it at 60 Hz.
It’s cool, anyway.
You just described our yard. Well, once we get new stakes so the deer don’t fall over. At first I thought your sentence said “I hate…” not “I have…” and I was going to have my feelings hurt. Hehe.
Oh I wanted to add: We have the icicle lights hung on the inside of our screened porch, against the house, year round. They provide nice ambient lighting for hanging out there in the evenings.
well I got married in Vegas, so color and kitsch is right up my alley. All-white is a snooze-fest. And the creamy-white color is nauseating.
Those fat 70’s Charlie Brown bulbs make me melt with joy, it’s not Christmas without them. [I was born in '73, let me have my nostalgia.] I even put one of those chubby bulbs in each window, all a different color. I wouldnt put blinky lights outside my house, that is a bit much, but the tree MUST twinkle with colored lights. And no way would I put anything inflatable in my yard.
My neighbors put out the “Christmas Burro” every year. It’s like those wire reindeers, only it’s a donkey, with multi-colored lights. Their house is a mini Spanish villa replica, so they like to play the part, even though they’re as WASPy as you can get.
We don’t have icicle lights, naturally, but these are starting to sound what they call here “fairy lights.” Different from the flat-out Christmas lights that decorate funerals, these are used to festoon outdoor restaurant areas. Quite a pleasant effect.
