Are you decorating the outdoors --- ? Please STOP --- !!! Bah Humbug--!!!

[defendandprotect]

This past week, I've noticed people placing their reindeer and other Xmas trash on their lawns . . .
not just people with little kids to amuse, but people in general who evidently think they know
more about decorating the outdoors than nature does.

Plastic is filling the lawns ---
Plastic reindeer --- plastic religious figures ---

Now -- I'm a big fan of lights --- so don't stop with the lights ---
I love to see them at night in the winter breaking the blackness ---

You don't have to cover your entire house, though ---

I did see a really cute indoor Pumpkin tree this Octoer in a real estate office ---

Really beautiful -- bows, fruits, vegetables, pumpkins --- every autumn shade. Cute idea!!!

[Beausoir]

1. Respectfully,

I'll put Christmas lights on and around my house in any manner I choose.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I don't decorate my house

Never have. Once put an electric "bubbler" candle set in the window, and that was it. Never had a tree in my house, either. Rather have them outdoors growing, or use wood from dead trees to heat the house.

[whistle]

3. I don't no outdoor lights and only a small tree with low watts inside

[supernova]

4. Be prepared for three visitors on Christmas Eve

:P

Relax, let the spirit wash over you.

It's one month a year people get to express themselves with tacky holiday lighting. :D

[Generator]

5. Plastic reindeer

beats four cars on the lawn and a boat, which is what I see around my neighborhood. At least the dead appliances make it to the street.

[fishwax]

6. I like the decorations

A lot of people around here seem to have a lot of fun with it, and wind up doing a pretty good job. Some of them are over the top, but I usually enjoy those too :)

[Captain Angry]

7. Jim Gaffigan says it best.

(paraphrasing)

Ok, we're going to bring that tree inside...

Now, take the lights and put them out front...

[zabet]

8. Why do you hate

baby Jesus? :shrug:

Seriously, I like seeing
the lights and decorations.
Just the kid in me I guess.

[kohodog]

9. for the last 6 years

we have transformed a 40" wreath into a lighted peace symbol and hung it on the arched window over our front door. This year I think I will make a colored light peace symbol without the greens. (I am Christian only by tradition, not belief).

[riderinthestorm]

17. My peace wreath is already up. It's my only decoration

52 inch lighted peace wreath on the front of my house for the holiday season. Put it together about 4 years ago and still can't believe it's up again - when will the madness stop?! :cry:

[Breeze54]

10. My neighbor has an inflatable turkey lit up on his front lawn and

and another neighbor has a stuffed "dead" guy, sitting in a lawn chair, on his front lawn. :P
I don't think my neighbors know that the new holiday is coming up yet! :P I'm not decorating
outside, I don't think. Maybe some lights in the windows. But I'm hoping to be in a new place
this year before the end of Dec. so I'll be lucky to find the lights after moving just before the 25th. :P

[Telly Savalas]

28. Encourage your neighbor to put a Santa hat on the stuffed "dead" guy.

[durrrty libby]

11. I love it all. Crappy plasic blow-up Santas on motrcycles,

little lights, big lights...I don't care.

I enjoy seeing peoples' self expression and I appreciate the effort

I enjoy all the goofy xmas movies. Tis the season to be jolly


:woohoo: :applause: :woohoo:

[sandnsea]

15. Will wonders never cease

We've got something in common!

:wow:

[durrrty libby]

16. Happy HoHoHo

:hi:

[Algorem]

12. lucky it's Christmastime or somebody'd go postal on their ass

[emilyg]

13. I like all the lights and decorations.

[Raine]

14. So do I ...

mine are going up starting December 1st. :-)

[Kadie]

18. Can I put lights around my plastic pink flamingos?

:7

[kineneb]

19. put up flamingo lights!

I saw some in a catalog... almost want to get some to put up in summer for back yard patio.

How about decorating the flamingos- give them Santa hats!

For even more depths of tackyness, entwine the flamingo lights with a set of the chili pepper lights...

[AndyTiedye]

20. Lots of LED Lights

[pansypoo53219]

21. hear hear!

remember when all there was was LIGHTS?

[sjdnb]

22. The thing that concerns me is impact on the environment

All the extra electricity used, the fact that lights, etc. have become so cheap people often just toss them out rather than change a fuse or find the bad bulb and reuse them. I'm sure some people recycle the trees cut and I don't know the stats on the number of trees felled for the holiday, or the impact, so I can't comment on that. But, the whole thing does seem to generate a lot of excess waste (wrapping paper, gas to go shopping, etc.) I live in an area where most of the folks tend to go a bit overboard with the decorating, many having it done by professionals.

However, until we get better ourselves with our green efforts, I don't feel comfortable telling others what to do.

But, some of the things we've done so far are:

- We started saving colorful parts of the newspaper to use as wrapping paper about two weeks ago, but we do this for all gift giving now or we use recycled wrapping from previous events, when it matches the occasion.
- We don't put any lit decorations outside anymore. We did use the branches we trimmed from a blue spruce to make outdoor decorations with ribbon we had saved from last year for the light post and the porch columns.
- We put timers on almost everything including holiday decorations - the artificial tree, the fiber optic angel, etc. (the hubby likes to buy one cheesy holiday display thing every year)
- I have shopped almost exclusively online for many years. I have a homegrown database of online retailers with notes and service/pricing info, accounting and inventory tracking system I've been honing since I started. But, this did not grow out of environmental concerns, it was because my children were small and it was easier.

One idea I'm a little hesitant to try, but that ecologically makes sense, is to reuse holiday cards. I've saved up a few hundred over the years and have used them as decorations or to make decorations. Some of them are very beautiful, vintage/retro, and I would love to put a label over the old signatures and reuse them or cut the 'back' off and send them as postcards. But, I'm just not bold enough to go there yet. Maybe next year.

Anyway, it would be nice to hear how others have modified their holiday decorating, shopping, etc. whether it be to address environmental concerns, or to save money or time or achieve some other goal.

[Berry Cool]

23. Some people just have no Christmas spirit.

The others have to make up for it, I guess.

[Historic NY]

24. I put LED lights out on my potted mini pines.......

white white color and best of all little energy use. I'm thinking about keeping there all year.

[gatorboy]

25. Christmas I don't mind but did anyone notice this year's freakin' Thanksgiving lawn decorations???

What the...FUCK????

[MisterP]

26. howzabout the inflatable plastic snowglobes in our neighborhood?

one has static figures, a second has some that rotate about 10 RPM, and a third is static--but has plastic snow blowing around inside from a nozzle inside the top

[iamthebandfanman]

27. snowglobes everywhere!

thats the huge fad now...

its weird tho, i see these families who are struggling to get by ... some even in government housing ... that have multiple snow globes in their yard.


sometimes you can go to far.


simple is usually the most attractive ive found... we used to have neighborhood light contests in my small town ;)

[KitchenWitch]

29. My next door neighbor has a display on his 5000 sq ft lot that funds SoCal Edison

for at least one quarter of the year....

Thankfully he turns it off at 10 pm.

I think you can see his house from outer space.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

30. I like the lights

but I'm not so crazy about those inflatable things, Santa Clauses and so forth, which when they aren't inflated look like big ugly piles of plastic garbage on people's front lawns. Kinda tacky, IMO, but I guess a lot of people like them.