Christmas Lights

[LouisFerdinand]

Cochabama, Bolivia

 

[LouisFerdinand]

Lit up Cape Town home

 

[LouisFerdinand]

 

[Logan]

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

Are you bothering this year?

Our local village has a lot of lights strung down the length of both sides of the street and they are up in the nearest town.
In our road a lot of house do bother. As the houses were all built at the same time to the same plan they all have similar front door arrangements, so these get similarly lit. Though some residents string more lights to the eaves, or around the bay windows and a few have features lit on the small front lawns, it can look very festive.
So today I made the effort

But this is a far as we go. We don't have a tree or other decorations, but we do string up the cards.

What cards? For better or worse, hardly anyone sends cards these days. Lucky you if you get enough to string up. I get it - they are so expensive these days and the postage too. For the amount we used to send years ago it would be well over $100 now. And I must admit we don't send many either.

This year we didn't any outdoor lights or decorations. But that was because we didn't get time until it was too late. Not worth all the work in the cold for 2 weeks. Had the house painted this year and all the hooks were removed, so that would have taken a while to replace too. Plus we have had to spend a lot of time getting my brother in law into a memory care home and getting him settled. We usually do a modest outdoor light/decoration show though. But I don't think we will do as many lights on the roof anymore. Getting too old to be climbing ladders and crawling around on roofs just for that. So it will be just the icicles along the front porch that I can reach from the step ladder and everything else at ground level in future.

 

[Sean Regan]

What cards? For better or worse, hardly anyone sends cards these days. Lucky you if you get enough to string up. I get it - they are so expensive these days and the postage too. For the amount we used to send years ago it would be well over $100 now. And I must admit we don't send many either.

This year we didn't any outdoor lights or decorations. But that was because we didn't get time until it was too late. Not worth all the work in the cold for 2 weeks. Had the house painted this year and all the hooks were removed, so that would have taken a while to replace too. Plus we have had to spend a lot of time getting my brother in law into a memory care home and getting him settled. We usually do a modest outdoor light/decoration show though. But I don't think we will do as many lights on the roof anymore. Getting too old to be climbing ladders and crawling around on roofs just for that. So it will be just the icicles along the front porch that I can reach from the step ladder and everything else at ground level in future.

Our village is a mass of lights every year. But we've not bothered with decorations or lights in the house this year.

Those in the garden can be turned on from the four switches in the lounge at any time, but I usually only turn them on, on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. As we've usually got the curtains closed, it's not a lot of point having them on.
I can turn them on if I'm going into the garden when it gets dark to get something out of the back-up freezers in the garage. But we've three PIR security lights covering the garden, so I don't usually bother.

Christmas card postage is getting expensive. The decoupage cards my wife makes are just to thick to go as a second class letter.
Those to friends and relatives that aren't local cost me £33 last week and one to Holland two weeks ago (mail there is very slow) cost £10. But she makes such an effort to make them, so I don't mind paying the postage.

 

[Logan]

I only have to send 2 cards to my 2 brothers and one card to my hubby's sister down in Devon. We buy one for our son that comes to visit before Christmas and we still bother giving them to our friends. So nothings changed for us. I put lights inside the 3 windows at the front and a lot around the house with the decorations.

 

[Logan]

Tree in the conservatory on the right

On the left in the conservatory a snow scene that gets bigger every year.

This is new by the side of the gas fire

On the stair banister

Upstairs on the landing.