Rules of Enlightenment

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by

Amy Sara
in

When you grow up in The Christmas Town of Iowa, the standard for Christmas Lighting is relatively high.  Still, as a former Navy wife, and mother of two small, currently sick children, I can appreciate a shoestring budget and a small decorating scale.  Whatever your budget, whatever your decorating style, there are some unspoken rules to decorating for Christmas.  Here are a few I would like to share from CWow and Cornfed Mama’s First Annual Christmas Light Review…

1.  Pick a speed.  Lights may be either stationery, chasers, racers, blinkers or flashers.  You must pick one speed and stick with it.  Please do not have your house decorated in all stationery lights and then put some racer lights up the stairs.  While you may think it’s fun to disco to the door, how can your guests get in when they are blinded by the racing lights?

2.  Pick a color.  Decorating your home should be at the very least, color coordinated.  Please don’t use all blue lights, and then, if you run out before you reach the end of your porch, throw on a strand of white lights.  This looks tacky.  And redneck.  And ghetto.  Pick a color and stick with it.  If you run out, add nothing except the color that matches the one you just ran out of!  Please don’t have all white lights lining the outside of your house, and then throw a strand of green around the columns.  2b.  Going to the dollar store and buying one box of every light they have on the shelves, then plugging every strand into a surge protector and throwing all the strands over the edge of your porch is not considered decoration.  It’s just plain ugly.

3. Pick a theme. Either you are going for elegant and classy, minimalist, or gaudy. You will not achieve any look worth praise when you mix more than one color, speed of light, or both. If you are going for kitschy, please, save it for the fenced in back yard. People are wasting serious dollars in gas to be disappointed in your sick sense of humor.  Please, don’t mix Disney with Looney Toons and throw in some Patriotic stuff all on your front lawn.  It’s nobody’s business if you have ADHD.

4.  If you are putting your tree in a window, please consider it exterior decor and plan accordingly. Match the tree inside to the lights outside. (see ) Also, please pull back your red sheer curtains if you are going to light the tree. We really don’t want to try to judge your tree through a red veil.  Thank you. 
5.  Little trees don’t need 500 tons of decorations. Really. They are tiny. A little goes a long way. 
6.  If you are going to put up lights, please have some sort of order.   When I drive by your house, I should not assume you shot your lights into the tree with a nerf gun. Ever. 
7.  #6 applies to interior lighting around Windows. If scotch tape doesn’t hold it up, take them down! 
8.  That pre-lit parrot you got for the Jimmy Buffett concert last year is NOT a Christmas decoration. Unless you are living on an island. In the tropics. And you’re providing Corona for all of us. 
9.  Rope lighting is not meant for tossing in banners across your front porch. It is not meant for rolling around the railing either. Really, rope lighting is for decorating a yacht. There is no water here. We are in the Midwest. 
10.  Net lighting is not to hang from your porch like a Dixie Flag.  It is to drape over bushes, so you get an even coverage.  It is NOT really a net.  Please don’t hang starfish and bass from it, pretending like you’re having a tropical Christmas.  See #8, and then take the net down.  Today.

11.  Your neighbors are not someone that you should be competing with for who can have the tackiest display, or who can throw out the most lawn ornaments and cover them with lights, or even who can have the most lights.  Your neighbor’s homes should play a part in the overall presentation of the neighborhood or street.  Some HOAs actually have a clause about this.  If you live in a subdivision, consider yourself blessed that you don’t spend all day Saturday, carefully placing lights to decorate your home, then wake up Sunday morning, to find Jed Clampett next door had spent all Saturday night shooting his lights over the roof through each tree with a whale harpoon.  Be thankful that you probably don’t have the Griswold family next door, trying to send a beacon to Santa Claus using every strand of lights, and lawn ornament that was available in the Walmart or the Dollar Store.

12.  Candy canes do not belong hanging from the rafters of your front porch.  No.  Take them down.

13.  If you are going to set out pre-lit present boxes, please, do yourself a favor and buy the colored ones.  Unless you have a scene that can be set outside, the white or clear present boxes should never be used.  What do they look like from the road, you ask?  Some white things sitting in a pile?No.  Geometric shapes? No! Do they look like Presents?  Definitely not.  Get colors.  ASAP.

14.  City Administrators.  Please make sure you have the support of 70 percent of your residents before you plan any activity and highlight your Christmas Lights as the feature of your town.  There is a lot to live up to, and if your residents do not understand these simple concepts in Lighting and Decoration, your town will look like the beer cooler in the Seven Eleven on Black Friday.  Yuck.

15.  If you are wealthy and live in a wealthy neighborhood, or house; we are driving by for a spectacular display.  Quit being a disappointment.  This is the time for you to show off and make others happy by doing it.

Other things that occurred on our First Annual Light Review:

We awarded points to those who were elderly and still found the gumption (or the cash to pay a youngster) to get out and put those lights up.  Especially the gentleman who has had the same “Merry Christmas!” lighted banner in his front window since we could remember.  We do have hearts, and we do seek to appreciate the finer things in life.

We gave some leeway to those we knew had major life issues, and could not afford, or find anyone to help put their lights up.  There may be something in the works for those people.  In the “old days”, your family, friends, and neighbors would all just show up and make things happen.  They would do the work that you couldn’t do, so that your place looked proper.  Nowadays, we are all either too busy or too selfish to think about those poor souls next door.

We shook our heads and tried to block out some of the hideousness that can not even be verbalized.  “What is going on here?!?!?” was a phrase that most often lead to hysterical laughter, tears, and the need to use the restroom!

We are not judging people, just lights.  However, if what is being reported about your lights also applies to your life, please, adjust accordingly.  Next year, I fully intend on bringing some type of image equipment to document this extravaganza!  It was a lovely night, filled with laughter we both needed in so many ways!  Our little Light Review may be in your neighborhood soon, because we can always add to this list.  I’m quite sure of it.  As I close this post, I think about my own little lights (see this picture), and I think about the way I felt as if it were very “crackerjack box”, very “plain”… and now I think about how simple and minimalist it is.  I am satisfied with my lights, my display, my decorations.  If only I could keep the dog from chewing it up!
Until Next Year… Happy Decorating!!


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