Colored Christmas Lights: Tacky?

[markses]

Poll question: Colored Christmas Lights: Tacky?

[Kolesar]

1. make a peace sign in lights on the side of your house

One of our neighbors has been doing that for years. Peace on Earth, everybody!

[htuttle]

2. They are only tacky....

... between February and the following November.

[omshanti]

3. only tacky if mixed with white lights

like, 1/3 the house is decorated in multi-color, another 1/3 in white lights, and the other 1/3 in blue lights.
Now, THAT's tacky!

[damnraddem]

9. Ooh, great idea! Mixing color with white lights.

Oh, that's right -- I don't put Xmas lights on my house. Nevermind.

[cosmicdot]

33. Lordy, Strom will rise from his grave ... all this talk of mixing bulbs

:bounce:

[grannylib]

57. lol actually our neighbor has large colored bulbs mixed with white icicle

lights on his trees outside (evergreens) and it looks tres cool...never would have thought of mixing not only colored and white but sizes too; it really looks lovely.
I use white lights on the tree, just to set off the colors of the ornaments, but colored and white for outdoor decorating. And chili pepper lights inside too, but those are year-round!

[GainesT1958]

4. Personally..

I can't imagine MY Christmas tree without them. My wife's tree, well, she never uses them, but MINE...gotta have 'em!:D



B-)

[Caution]

5. actually....

i HATE white christmas lights. Boring as hell, i think they are borderline pretentious. Rather than saying "look i have class because i use only white lights rather than colored lights" they say to me "look, i think that white lights are somehow classier than colored lights, so I'm putting them up and I'll look down on you disdainfully for choosing colored lights"

just my opinion.

[markses]

6. Hmmm. That's exactly what they say

And that's why I only use white lights!

[Caution]

12. ahhh so you are being contrary

for the sake of being contrary? Gotcha! When I think of classy, I think of someone who donates to charity without a press release, someone who works for a campaign over ideals and not for an appointment, someone who tips their papergirl/boy during the holidays. How one choose to celebrate christmas really doesn't have anything at all to do with being classy. There was a time when fur was considered classy, when gold was considered classy, when huge diamonds made one classy. All of these things are quite gauche these days.

(hopefully i am coming across as playful and not antagonistic here)...

[markses]

14. Colored Christmas lights look ridiculous to me

But I'm just testing the waters on the general feeling here. I have a certain image of DUers in general (yes, I know, this is ALWAYS wrong...), so I wanna see if it lives up.

[Caution]

25. and somehow the color of christmas lights will tell you this?

Caution:

Age: 30
Sex: Male
Location: Salem MA
IQ: 171
University Attended: Harvard University
Major: Philosophy and Classical Literature
Occupation: Sr Software Quality Assurance Engineer
Ambition: To hold a high federal political office (senate?)
Current Household Income: over $100k
Car Driven: White Ford Taurus
Favorite Restaurant: Troquet, downtown Boston
Favorite Wine: White Burgundy
Favorite Beverage: Port
Favorite Author: Christopher Moore
Favorite Film: It's a Wonderful Life
Favorite Political Author: Noam Chomsky
Marital Status: Hopefully engaged as of this Christmas Eve
Pets: 2 cats (Kasha and Leeloo)

None of these things mean i have class, this means i have class:

I donate to the Aids Action Committee, to the DNC, to the campaigns of Dean, Kerry, Kucinich and Clark, Kennedy and Tierney, to NPR, to the Jimmy Fund, to NOW, to Planned Parenthood and to the EFF. I volunteer as much time as I can in my community, I love my significant other without reservation or condition, I would gladly give my life for her, I treat those around me with the respect and consideration they deserve and I try my best to be a good person.

I *love* colored Christmas lights because they make me remember that my family though very poor (we lived in the projects when i was growing up and the proudest days of my life were the day my parents bought their first home with my help and the day my sister graduated from Harvard with my help) went all out for Christmas and always makes me remember that though I have my fair share of problems with my parents that they truly love me, my siblings and my significant other. White Christmas lights just wouldnt be the same to me :)

(I guess my message is that judging your peers by the color of their lights doesn't quite cut the mustard in my opinion).

(now who sounds like a pompous self-righteous schmo...yep that'd be me ! :)

[markses]

29. That's a lot of serious effort

in response to a joke, dizzawg! God bless you, friend.

You are an individual.:eyes:

In any case, the color of the Christmas lights is just one piece of an ingenius, complex, chaos theory-esque puzzle of the generalized DUer. I will also survey whether some deranged imbeciles use a spoon while they eat spaghetti. That's wortho.000078419 scale points on the markses GDEI (Generalized DUer Evaluation Instrument). All will be told in a paper for JAMA. They've already stated an interest in the pathology.;-)

[Caution]

31. LOL

heheheh thanks :) and seriously I was trying to approach the joke from the other side but i just couldnt get the tone right in my posts :) ah well c'est la vie.

[bobbieinok]

7. How old are you all anyway???

When I was a kid, there were only colored Christmas lights?

Small white ones came in when?????? 70s>

[trotsky]

10. So true.

Instead of "classy" I would say CLASSIC. Colored lights rule. That's all we ever had when I was a kid, and I'm not all that old...

[wanderingbear]

50. 90ies.. As far as I can tell.

I still have the old coloed onesa and so dose everyone else in the hood.

[damnraddem]

8. And just what's wrong with a working-class pizzaria in Napoli?

Or in the U.S., for that matter?

[markses]

11. There's nothing wrong with it

But I ain't selling pizza to Italian carpenters out my friggin' living room, naw mean?

[catzies]

13. I wish I'd waited before buying icicle lights a few years ago

When they first came out, they had only white.

Now I've seen icicle lights in blue and purple and I really like them!!

[grannylib]

58. Those are way cool! Try mixing your white icicle lights with strings of

large colored bulbs on evergreens if you have any; it's an awesome look.

[DieboldMustDie]

15. As long as they don't blink.

That's tacky!

[freeminder]

18. that depends on the blinking frequency.

if you set it to "low frequency neon sign" it can have calming effects, for example

:-)

[grannylib]

59. I hate blinkers; if ya gotta have 'em, really slow is best but I hate 'em

[Monte Carlo]

16. Not if used sparingly...

... they're not. They can be, though, if they're just thrown up any old place.

In my house, we use colored lights for the Christmas tree, white lights elsewhere.

On the flip side, white lights can be boring. Trends change.

[jmm]

17. Either can be nice if they aren't over done like this

http://www.uglychristmaslights.com/2003/dontstare.html

[freeminder]

20. a minor city blackout will occur when you switch it on :-)

funny pic, thanks

[the_boxer_]

22. Good Heavens! The electricity bill must be enormous!

[Ediacara]

38. That sight's FANTASTIC

:-)

And for the subject of this thread..... White lights can be nice, and subdued, especially if it's a year round thing where the lights are wrapped around the branches of deciduous trees. BUT Colorful lights are FAR from tacky, and are great in the home because they're very nice and warm.

I do not like blinking or chasing or any other kind of non-steady lights though. Those are tacky!

[the_boxer_]

19. Terribly tacky

White only. Not the huge bulbs either. Those are ridiculous.

[markses]

23. Huge bulbs signify "Clowns Inside"

;-)

[KittyWampus]

21. Well- White Lights Have The "Landing Strip" Effect

but can be nice...

[MadMike]

24. Call me Mr. Traditional but.........

[KittyWampus]

27. Gilding The Hemp!

:D

[frylock]

28. nice seed pods..

keep that thing away from the ladies, if ya know what I mean! :smoke:

[grannylib]

60. That's great, hee hee!

[Rainbowreflect]

26. I had a friend that would look at those tacky, overdone homes.

And say they looked like the Christmas fairy had :puke: on their yard. Now my husband will just ask, fairy puke?

[trackfan]

30. Um...All WHITE lights are so 1998

Colored lights are pretty. The whole notion of bright colors lacking class stems from a historical misconception, based on the fact that the bright paint used on the relief sculpture of ancient buildings had long since washed off by the time modern eyes saw, and based their ideas of "class" upon them.

[KittyWampus]

32. WOW~ An Art Historical Perspective On XMas Lights!!!

I am in awe>>> :)

[blondeatlast]

41. Only at DU . . .

[markses]

34. Paris Hilton, ladies and gentlemen!

And remember, the ten o'clock show is always different than the eight o'clock show!

[NightTrain]

35. Christmas lights are pretty to look at.

And I hope I never become so cynical and jaded that I feel otherwise!

[markses]

39. I'm whistling Auld Lang Syne

with a tear in my eye...for you! ;-)

[Lisa]

36. anybody here try the new energy-saver LEDs?

I've never been a big fan of Christmas lights before, but these are pretty neat. They use something like 90% less energy than the traditional incandescent type, plus they don't get hot (safer with kids around) and are almost unbreakable. Plus the new bright blue type are very attractive.

[geniph]

37. I like white lights on the tree

mostly because it looks sort of reminiscent of Victorian trees decorated with candles. We have a string of red and green bulbs outside. I don't like the pink and purple and yellow lights much. Red and green is nice.

[DivinBreuvage]

40. White lights: same color as the wool of the sheep who choose them!

One of my fondest childhood memories is of all the colored lights at Christmastime. Very few people had white lights at that time; in fact you generally only saw them on the chintzy white tin foil or plastic trees that we kids used to laugh at as a blasphemy.

I remember when the white lights started to appear some years ago. At first almost no one had them; but every Christmas a few more people decided to abandon the traditional style for the new "oh, aren't we classy just like our neighbors" look. Now it seems to me that more homes in this area (northeast Ohio) display white lights than otherwise. A clear sign of distinction! As we all know, in America you're really no one unless you're just like everybody else.

On stately white homes they do look very nice, I grant. But on the hovels of people who work for a living they look as ridiculous as a "Bush/Cheney" bumpersticker on the rusted-out tailgate of an unemployed factory worker's pickup truck, and I have no respect for the so-called "aesthetics" of the bleating snobs who choose to display them so they can fit in with the rest of the errant flock.

On the other hand, white Christmas lights are eminently fitting for postmillenial America: bland, characterless, mediocre, and dead common, but with a certain taint of smug pretention and self-congratulation.

Bah! Humbug!

[Blade]

42. multi-colored = tacky....

single colored=classy.

[blondeatlast]

43. Shiny aluminum tree with the revolving RGB wheel

All my life I've wanted one. The trees are back, but I haven't seen the light wheel.

Colored. My ornaments are every color of the rainbow, every material known to manWith a beautiful, circa '50s lighted star on top.

No tamales for you, Markses--the rest of you come on over if your in my 'hood!

Hey, Markses, you can come too--just bring some more egg nog, willya?!

[SheilaT]

44. The first two or three houses

that did white lights only looked pretty classy to me. And then a couple of years later, at least half the houses seemed to be only white lights and they're boring boring boring.

I, too, am longing to find an aluminum Christmas tree with the colored wheel. When we moved to Tucson, Arizona, when I was fourteen, my mom bought one of those and I can't tell you how much I hated it then and desperately wanted a real tree again. Well, all these years later, the memory of that dumb, tacky aluminum tree makes me nostalgic for what seems to have been a simpler time.

[calimary]

45. Hilarious thread!

I should stop by the lounge more often. Too busy being a full-o-myself ninja warrior.

We're the "hippies" of the neighborhood. The aging 60's-peaceniks and liberal/progressives who let the daughter of the upscale establishment-attorney Armani/Mercedes GOP neighbors next door come over and tie-dye in our backyard a couple of summers ago.

We like lots of lights (well, within reason, regarding electricity-usage) and other stuff of many colors. Sometimes my husband programs them to move and flicker, but then again, he programs EVERYTHING. He'd program our cats' poopings if he thought he could figure out how.

Frankly, I don't care about tacky. I'm a floozy already. Was ALWAYS tempted to overdo the accessories. This year, for my person, the decoration themes include pipe cleaners, beads, and jingle bells.

So whatcha gonna do, 'eh?

I once knew a fellow who believed that, whatever the white elephant, the best thing to do, ALWAYS, was to spray it gold and laugh at it. So, every time we visited, we were laughing at old hats, plumbing pipes, and odd broken crap. And many times there'd be pieces of newspaper left on the floor outside, with the gold-spattered silhouette of whatever had been sprayed on it a few hours earlier. Sometimes, mentally, I've actually sprayed entire people gold and laughed at them.

Maybe that's one of the smaller and more humble joys of Christmas...

[mykpart]

46. I'm with you, sister!

Hubby and I are the over-50 couple in our neighborhood and we have the tackiest yard on the block with colored lights everywhere and plastic santa, snowmen and reindeer, and next year he want to get plastic light-up nativity scene! Lighten up, folks, it's Christmas!

[blondeatlast]

52. ROFLMAO! Spray the white elephant gold . . .

Why am I thinking of my (literally) Freeper acquaintances all of a sudden?

What a deliciously snarly picture I have in my head!

[Raine]

47. Colored lights...exciting & interesting.....

white lights...bland, boring and done to death.:boring:

[Dogmudgeon]

48. Alas for snobbery

I love color lights.

Some years ago, my Mother got the white-lights snobbery bug, and the family Christmas Tree has been monocromatic since that time. But it fits her "artistic" conception of how a sophisticated Christmas tree should look, and that's all that counts.

She also bought expensive high-tech-looking laminated-Formica-coated furniture for the living room and hideous vertical blinds for the even-uglier windows. The windows, I can forgive; it's an apartment. But the verticals? The woman must have been raised by wolves, or Bauhaus architects!

Before that, Ye Olde Tannenbaum was usually multi-colored and interesting to look at. And when Dad was alive and insisting that the tree be real with pine needles and all, there would be half a ton of toxic lead-based tinsel on the sucker, too. And real ornaments made of tissue-thin, easy-break glass! The Classic Tree is, and should be, a death trap. So much the better to celebrate Life.

Now THAT is what I call a Christmas Tree.

At this time of year, it almost makes me want to run out, marry someone who can stand being around me, get her pregnant a few times so that we can have just such a tree for the kiddies. It would justify the acquisition of a dog, too, but that's another thread.

I'm just sentimental that way.

--bkl
Fa la la la la
La la
La
La

[Piperay]

49. Tired of the white lights

at first they were new and different, now they are just so common and seem very unimaginative. I am glad that in the last couple of years little by little more and more people seem to be going back to the colored lights. :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

53. Absolutely! At first the small white lights looked so much more

tasteful, but now I hate them and like the lights to be the big, old-fashioned colorful ones.

[ScreamingMeemie]

51. I love colored lights. Will only have colored lights on my tree.

I love sitting in the living room with all the lights off...looking at the lights bouncing off the tinsel and on to the walls and ceiling...sigh.

[scarlet_owl]

54. No freakin' way are they tacky!

Let me tell you, I am one classy gal, and I would have nothing else on my tree.

[Tracer]

55. I love colored lights!

I even love those wonderfully exuberant, overdone displays!

There's a neighborhood in my oh-so-Colonial-upscale town that has taken wild and crazy to new extremes.

The entire neighborhood (of million-dollar homes) has gone nuts with lights! Thousands and thousands of them! Santas in helicopters! Wildly tacky Nativity scenes! Loudspeakers braying carols!

It's great! It puts the terribly-tasteful, teeny white lighters to shame!

[grannylib]

56. Only tacky if overdone or messy or whatever...they can look very classy

indeed if done well.

[amazona]

61. I have classic colored lights from the 1970s

Colors you can't get anymore including a deep blue. I have the only blue lights on my street!

[lpbk2713]

62. I've seen a few dumb polls here before but..........

this one deserves an award. WTF is wrong with colored Christmas lights? Hey, if I'm old-fashioned you'll just have to get over it darlin'.

[BringEmOn]

63. I suppose you prefer only missionary position with the lights off?

[Beaker]

64. without snow on the ground, ALL christmas lights look tacky.

AFAIC.

[Breezy du Nord]

65. Tacky if you leave them up until April

Like some neighbors of mine...