My new street seems to be really into the holiday lights and decorations. The weirdos across the street waaaaaay overdo it, some people down the street have a small army of inflatables, and every other house has those weird moving lights (okay, those are kind of cool). My philosophy is why would I want to put all that stuff up if I'm just going to have to take it all down?
How far do you all go with the decorations?
Since we moved here our decorations have been pretty simple. I just hung two strands of all-blue, C9/big bulb LED lights on the front of the house yesterday. We put two all-blue strands of smaller (C5, not mini) LED lights in two of the bedroom windows, and a strand of big bulb LEDs in the main picture window. Other than that, we do a tree, which I'll go cut down next week.
The elderly woman across the street had a son move in with her a year ago. Last year they had one inflatable snow globe. This year they have a "reindeer" taller than her one-story house. It looks like a cartoon dog with antlers. Apparently we needed to have the privilege of seeing this monstrosity every day, but just in case we aren't #blessed enough, they also got an inflatable, man-sized snow globe and a combination inflatable of a 1.25x-scale Santa depositing a present under a .66x-scale Christmas tree. All of these are powered by compressors/pumps, meaning it sounds like a vacuum cleaner derby outside at night, but lie in pools of flaccid plastic in her yard during the day. I'm sure they're only a season or two away from starting their journey to the Great Pacific garbage patch.
We also only have a couple strings of simple blue LEDs, and only across the first floor. There is a house around the corner that goes all out, and I would admit to enjoying a bit of schadenfreude should it get snowed/iced under.
We don't decorate (Because Jewish). But our next door neighbor has a big display in the yard. If I sat near the window, I could read by the light of the display at night.
Our first 5-6 years in our current house we did decorate a lot of our trees and our roof line. It was beautiful. Then one frosty Saturday afternoon I slipped and skidded down the roof and if it wasn't for a frantic grab of the gutter that slowed down my fall, I would probably be in a wheelchair. So, we decided it is no longer worth it. The trees are now to big to decorate too. Now, we just decorate inside and that is it. I don't miss the hassle.
In our 1.5 story craftsman bungalow in St. Paul (.17 acre city lot), I did the roofline(s), a couple 6-7 foot arborvitae and framing the windows on 3-season porch in multicolor strands. My wife, who absolutely adores the Christmas season, was (is) in charge of the inside tree and associated interior decorations.
Now with little free weekend time (two kids and a 2 acre parcel with mature trees too numerous to count - yard work galore), and a two story house with just under double the roofline footage, I decided - for the first time since moving in 4 years ago - to do one of the 20’ pines out front with those two full-sized multicolor strands. I also hang a couple imitation wreaths with bells and bows on the side of the house and front of the garage. My wife still does her usual tree and interior (stockings and garland on the mantle, candle centerpieces, wreath on the front door, evergreen pots, etc.).
We do drive around and check out neighborhoods with lights each year, and generally do the Police Foundation/IBEW Christmas display drive through Phalen Park as well.
edit: but not this year, apparently- https://www.google.com/amp/www.twincities.com/2017/11/21/st-paul-holiday-lights-in-the-park-2017-phalen-police-foundation-fundraiser/amp/
A string along the peak of the roof on both our house and our garage, as well as a long string around one of our young (<10 years) pine trees in the front yard.
I wasn't going to do it this year, but I'm glad I did. Turns out Newbish loves Christmas lights more than just about anything in the world.
We decorate inside and outside we hang a big wreath. Last year, however, the cat decided that the Christmas tree was her personal jungle gym. We ended up undecorating the tree before Christmas in order to keep the remaining ornaments unbroken. But the tree was still pretty with just the lights on it.
We used to put up an inflatable dreidel bear (gifted to us) and one string of lights above the front door. Then, the bear was vandalized, so I just stopped bothering with the lights.
Inside, we put up a bunch of inherited decorations and two strings of garland. The Valet has started asking about a Christmas tree, so this might be the first year we get one since around 2010.
Then, the bear was vandalized
Buncha savages in this town.
I'm sure it had a lot more to do with living two blocks from a high school on a semi-busy street than anything else. I know inflatables on streets with traffic generally ask for trouble.
I love Christmas decorations, but I don't love putting them up, so I put out four lighted reindeer that are very easy to put up and call it good. If anyone thinks the pastor should have more than that, or should have something with more of a religious theme, they're welcome to come and put them up for me.
We get a tree in Hartford (love waiting outside by the fire-pit at the tree-place whilst NBBW is inside buying other stuff). We do overpriced wreathe on the front door, nice-smelling pine-swag on the mantle, and NBBW is planning on filling the empty mum containers with pine branches and other sparkly stuff.
Went to a pancake breakfast at the local Masonic Lodge in support of my town's emergency food provider ("Food Closet") for families identified by local social service agencies. As was the case every other year, turnout was lousy because the Food Closet doesn't do squat for marketing. Oy. I can only reach so many people by sharing on Book of Face.
but what I really wanted to share was that some assholes broke into the Masonic Lodge's storage shed to steal their giant flat-top grill recently. WTF is wrong with people?
Ugh, I detest decorating for holidays. I'd it were up to me, there'd be zero lights or trees or any of that crap. Since it isn't up to me, we usually do the light projector things and a tree with a bunch of crap on it. Got the tree today, now just waiting until the branches open a bit then everyone else can put stuff on it.
I suppose the poor people ought to hurry and die and decrease the surplus population too, huh? 😉
I like holiday lights. Don't love putting them up, so prefer the simpler things ("here's a star I can just put on a hook and it looks all complete and like I put in real work, yay!"). I very much enjoy driving around and looking at others' lights, and every year we make a trip to Mankato for the holiday light display they do at the park there. It is amazing, and I highly recommend.
At the same time, I abhor inflatables and the like. It's a fine line, I suppose, but I knows what I like and what I don't.
Berardino is reporting the Twins are out on Ohtani. If he really didn't want another Japanese star on his team, maybe the Twins can become more aggressive on going after Darvish.
I never really believed they were in. Good news: it's being reported that the Yankees are out, too.
I do hope the Mariners land him.
Wouldn’t mind Ohtani winding up in San Diego, myself, but if he’s in Seattle I’ll probably get to see him play at home at some point.
I worry Preller would find a way to screw that up worse than Dipoto
Still, I'd rather him in the NL. Heard some speculation he might want NL because he wants to play OF, and that would be forced in the NL.
I have to say, other than the Cubs (and maybe Dodgers... haven't heard conclusively on them yet?), I'm really happy with his more narrow focus, and would absolutely love to see a team like the Padres land him.
FSN putting up the "winnable stretch" graphic for the Wolves, all while its 2 point game to the freakin Clippers.
If Jimmy Butler hadn't rescued them, that would have been a loss. Terrible effort by not-Jimmy and not-Taj last night.
EAR and I are both from families that never strung up Christmas lights outside, so we keep up with that tradition.
We do decorate two trees in the house... one's an "Advent Tree" in the classroom/dining room that gets "Jesse Tree" decorations, white lights (because purple was actually pink) and a big purple ribbon for garland. It went up yesterday.
The other goes up the weekend after Immaculate Conception (which is HPR's birthday).
Both are near-constantly lit from the time we set them up, and visible through our windows (one towards the street, one towards the bike trail in back).