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Poll: Fewer Christmas Lights This Year?

18 years ago

As DH and I have been driving home from various Christmas gatherings it seems to me there are far fewer homes decorated with lights this year, compared to last year. I see houses with lighted trees inside, but few or absolutely no outside lights. Maybe people are dreading the electric bill this year!

Is your town "lit up" as much as usual?

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Comments (8)

minnie_tx
18 years ago
Other areas might be but mine and only two others on my block.
grammyp
18 years ago
Not many at all in our town. Just 3 on our block, usually everyone has some out.

beverly
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socks
18 years ago
We had lots and lots of homes lit. It did seem to go in groups though--lots of dark houses and then an area with lots of lit houses.
chisue
Original Author
18 years ago
I thought of a possible reason we saw fewer lights in our area this year: early, sudden onset of winter -- below freezing and a foot of snow starting in the first week of December and staying that way until a let-up Christmas Eve. Maybe that prevented people from stringing lights.
Meghane
18 years ago
DH and I walked the dogs a couple of days before Christmas and noticed a sharp drop in the number of outside decorated homes. It's been just the opposite of your problem ChiSue; unseasonably warm, so there hasn't really been an excuse. We put up and took down lights wearing just long-sleeve T-shirts and jeans. I of course had my house all lit up, but there were very few in the immediate neighborhood. Lots of people are also trying to sell and maybe they didn't decorate because of that.
wandam1
18 years ago
We live in a very small town, and there were SO MANY houses lit up this year. There are usually quite a few big displays, but this year those big displays got bigger, and the previous medium displays grew to large, and the small displays grew to medium. Many houses that didn't decorate with outside lights previously, had at least some this year. I don't really know why. It seems that it has been increasing little by little for years, but this year it was very obvious.
Next year, I want to shop for outdoor Christmas things EARLY - as soon as they come out. This year if you didn't get things early, you didn't get them at all. I decorate outside for Halloween, more than anyone in town. Nothing gruesome, but cute and funny scarecrows around the yard, lots of jack-o-lanterns and pumpkin/gourd displays, black cat planters, etc. And I dress up, sit in the yard and play music on Halloween night. This year I only had three scarecrows - one was riding an old rusted bike, one was chopping in the flower bed, and the other was pushing an old rotory blade mower.
Due to my work schedule and commitments, I am increasingly busy from September through December, so I get less and less energetic and more and more stressed as the season progresses. So what I can accomplish in Oct. is much more than what I can accomplish in Dec., unfortunately. Plus I am more picky - or have not exactly found my niche - in Christmas decorations. I want something that not everyone has, and a religious theme is a plus. And it seems like all the Nativity sets are pretty much the same, and not really as large as I would like them. Then there are alll the pieces to deal with.
Lights in trees or on bushes are really pretty, but our front yard trees are just too big, and all are problematic in one way or another. We don't have any bushes in front either. I am hoping to buy some arborvitae (cone shaped evergreens) trees this spring and plant them in the front, but they will still be small at Christmas. Still I think it might be cute to have them lit up like 'mini Christmas trees'.

Wanda in South Texas
minnie_tx
18 years ago
Wanda, you're my kind of gal!!
wandam1
18 years ago
Well, thank you, Minnie! :) Oh, and for all my rambling on in my other post, I forgot to mention what I DID do for my lame attempt at Christmas lights this year. Once again, I only had a really large evergreen wreath with twinkle lights on my door, and an aprox. 18" lighted plastic Afro-American little girl praying angel on a plant stand by the door. That's it. :( I did buy some big bulb lights but didn't get them put up anywhere. When they first put out the Christmas things at Walmart, they had strings of lights that had stars dangling off of them. Did anyone see or get those? I wish I had. By the time I went back though, they were all sold out.

Wanda in South Texas
http://wanderinglily.blogspot.com/

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