Do you put up Christmas lights? If so, do you go all out, stay simple? What style of lights do you use, icicles, colored lights, white lights? Do you have any blow up and light up decorations on your lawn? Does you neighborhood go all out for Christmas? Have you entered a Christmas decorating competition? Is going for a drive to look at Christmas lights a tradition in your family? Do you have a street near you, that is the go to place to look at Xmas lights? Do you still put up lights and decorations as an empty nester?
Just a wreath on the door. And a winter “Welcome” sign. No lights.
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Just a wreath on each of our two courtyard doors, one on the courtyard gate and garland winding up the one arch column. No lights.
We put lights on the evergreen tree out front and the one we have in back. We don’t decorate the rest of the outside of our house. When the kids were younger we put lights up over the garage and around the pillar near our front door, as well as around the front windows. We used icicle lights over the garage and colored lights on the pillar and around the windows. It looked great. Nowadays, we keep it simpler. I’m also glad H doesn’t have to get on a ladder anymore. I had a co-worker whose husband fell off the roof while he was putting up Christmas lights. He had pretty bad injuries and was in a cast for months. Could’ve been worse.
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It’s a warm day here in OH, so I was just outside, putting up our large, lighted nativity set. We have a star that goes at the top of our fireplace, but I have my gutter cleaning guy do that.
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We have three lighted wreaths on the front porch railing and one on the shed out back.
We live on a double lot corner. Front yard gets more “formal” decorations. Wreath on front door, Two very large pots each get one 4ish foot lighted tree, all front windows have inside electric candle glowing and spotlight gets put in the front yard centered on the house and all of the above.
Backyard (since on a corner is partially viewed) gets pine/cedar roping on the long deck, with colored lights wrapped with the roping. A wreath on the gate to walk up to the deck. A lighted grapevine tree sits next to the back entry door.
I also fill my window boxes in a few different places with pine good size sprigs I cut from our yard pine trees. Sometimes put a bow on them or a some fake red berry sprigs. I leave this up till February when I’m PINE-ING for spring and pull them out!!!
All lights done by Abasket and I sort of hate doing it, but enjoy it once it’s up. Hate even more taking it down!
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My husband is anti-wreaths. “Our house is not the tomb of the unknown soldier, and Jesus did not die on Christmas.” LOL. No wreaths, fine. Eons ago, we discovered rope lights when they were still a novelty. We ran them along the roofline of the house and just took down the cords… the lights lasted several years, and there was no need to remove them because they were barely noticeable when not lit. In this house, we put snowflakes lights on the house. Only one story so it is easier to do. I put light strings on the bushes by the front door, amd it looks quite festive. 
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When the kids were younger we decorated bushes in front of the house and put lights along roofline of some places.
Now we just have candles in the windows, and nothing technically outside.
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Speaking of candles as people mention having them, I’d love any links to either GOOD battery operated ones that are bright and don’t have massive battery drain OR better looking electric ones that are minimalistic, not fru fru. I have 9 in the front of the house and while they look great from outside they are indeed a bit cheesy from the inside view. But I love lighted candles in the winter on our home.
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My neighbors have put red lightbulbs in all their outdoor fixtures, and now my DH is walking around singing “ROXXXXXXXX annnnnn”
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I had some little votive candles that were battery operated and lasted a long time. But I don’t know about other size candles. I believe I got the votive ones from Lowe’s a long time ago.
We have a house when you turn into our neighborhood, that is absolutely covered with lights. It makes Clark Griswold’s house look plain. The lights flash, change colors, flash in patterns, etc. It looks neat, but it also looks a little too Vegas. It literally looks like a casino.
We have a street near us nicknamed “Candy Cane Lane,” where every house is decorated. And not just decorated, but goes all out. They even have lights that go over the street. On Friday and Saturday nights they sell hot chocolate and cookies from 7-9. People come from all over the area to drive down the street to look at lights. The kids and I went once, and it probably took us over an hour to drive (slowly) down the street, turn around and drive back up. It was fun to do once, but it’s an absolute mob scene, with bumper to bumper traffc.
Another neighborhood near us goes all out at Christmas too. It’s a wealthy neighborhood with large houses on big lots and it’s just spectacular. We like to go there too, because it’s a big neighborhood and every house is decorated. And since the houses are so big, there are so many lights and decorations. Like “Candy Cane Lane” it’s bumper to bumper traffic. Last time we went they had police directing cars. Fun to go to, but kind of glad I don’t live in a neighborhood that goes all out like that.
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No lights for us. We tried the first year we moved into this house and no one ever went out at dark to turn them on (no outlet so everything was battery packs). We have a wreath on the front door, a holiday flag, xmas planters, garland on the porch railings, and I change out our candles in our hanging lanterns to be red.
Our next door neighbor has rocks and pebbles arranged into a “stream” (it’s usually dry since we don’t get much rain) and every year he puts different colored blue lights into it and makes them twinkle so it looks like running water. It’s so pretty! When we have guests come at night, we always tell them to drive by so they can see it. Very creative!
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I do the same thing every year. We have two front porches, one on second story and one on main level. I drape both porches with fresh garland and have red bows on each porch post. I string the garland with warm white lights. We usually have a fresh wreath on the front door that my husband purchases for a fundraiser from a coworker’s daughter, but he no longer works there, so need to source a different wreath.
Two of my neighbors go a bit all out with lights and decorations. One has super cheesy IMO blow up lawn decor (one year it included Sponge Bob). They have teenage kids so I thought at some point they’d stop, but nope. The other just uses a lot of lights. Not cheesy but to my eye, not pleasing as he uses a mix of warm and cool colored LED lights, which do not look right together to me.
I’m the decorator at our house. If not for me, not sure my husband would bother with outside lights. I just put up my outside decor today, taking advantage of unseasonably warm temps.
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I’m not a huge fan of the blow up things either. I’ve seen some that are so big they’re almost like the balloons you see in the Macy’s parade.
There are some blow up ones that I do like. Our neighbors have a blow up wiener dog with a Santa hat and sweater that’s pretty cute. They have a pug, but they couldn’t find a blow up pug. It’s not too big and their son just loves it!
One piece of decor that I like are those pretty light up deer. I’ve always wanted to get some. They really are beautiful. Especially the ones in the warm white light. I’ve seen them in cool white light and I don’t like those as much.
I’ve also seen light up presents with bows that always look pretty and tasteful. My co worker has pretty candy canes that line the path up to her front door. At night they look really pretty.
We bought one once… it was a pain to store because they don’t disassemble well. Out it went after the first year! 
Bummer! Yeah, I like Christmas decorations that are easy to store. Our garage is so crowded with two cars and all the stuff we already have, I don’t need stuff that’ll take up too much room. Thanks for the info!
They are pretty though!
H does the outside and doesn’t want any lights nailed/stapled to the 1910 house. Fine with me. We have candles in the windows, a wreath on the door and a small one on the lightpost near the street. We have a 6 foot Xmas tree with colored lights on a table on the porch. The porch wraps around the house with big columns. In between columns, we hang super large ornaments. We used to have a plastic Santa and a workshop on the porch when the kids were younger, but that’s gone. Then we had a family of lighted reindeer for awhile, but they died a couple of years ago.
I love houses that go all out. The tackier the better. But I’m too lazy to do all of that. I prefer to decorate the inside for myself. I don’t see the outside 
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Last year we set up a couple of projector lights of white snowflakes onto the blank wall and colorful lights were wrapped around two evergreen shrubs flanking the walkway to the front door. We did the same this year, plus added two blow-up decorations for GD who’s a fan of Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse. The lights and blow-ups are on timers.
When C9 size LED lights were introduced we switched to those. For a few years I hired our yard guy and his helper to put lights on a huge evergreen in our backyard and also wrap our pergola in lights.
Blow-up decorations have generally been considered tacky wherever we’ve lived, but I don’t care. Little ones seem to really love them.
In two previous neighborhoods, we were informed by the HOA’s unofficial spokeswomen that we “had” to use only white lights, wreaths with red bows and red bows on the mailbox. Nothing else was deemed appropriate. We put up our colored lights and a Blow-Mold Snoopy in a Santa hat. They went up on the first day of Advent and remained until Epiphany. I received a letter in one of the neighborhoods about that, but there was nothing in the covenants and restrictions about decorations so the woman just had to get over it.
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