# Tasteful Christmas Lighting - Link: https://www.oldhouseguy.com/christmas-lighting/ - Published: 2017-11-17T17:55:55-05:00 - Author: Ken Roginski Christmas lighting can add to the joyful holiday festivities with houses decorated in all their splendor. Christmas lighting with brightly colored lights can make a beautiful house much more beautiful but it needs to be done right. Just like everything else! We have all seen houses **decorated with Christmas lights in such a way that make a nice house look like an absolute mess. **Probably not much different than the homeowners. **To understand design it is more important to see mistakes and badly decorated homes than it is to see the well decorated.** There is no reason for one’s lack of refinement, taste, or ill-breeding, to be flaunted. [⌊tacky christmas lighting⌉⌊tacky christmas lighting⌉[ I would say this is a bit overdone but it is NOT sloppy like the examples below. A lot of care went into this. Some people may not like this but this is actually the best house in this post. I don’t mean to put a wet blanket on the spirit of Christmas but I have seen some very bad or should I say SLOPPY Christmas decorating. In most cases the bad Christmas decorating is usually on the unkept homes in the not so nice neighborhoods but there are always exceptions. When seeing sloppy Christmas lighting as with a sloppy house and bad landscaping with no pride of ownership, one wonders how bad the house looks on the interior – not to mention a sloppy looking homeowner. This year I will take photos of good and bad decorations and add the photos to this page.  For now, here is a listing of dos and don’ts to help you do your best to show off that holiday spirit. Click on the image to enlarge. ## Christmas Lighting Dos & Don’ts   * First thing is don’t light up too early. If you are a business decorating early can be understood but the retail world pushes this to the extreme rushing and making the holiday less appealing. For a homeowner the official religious start of Christmas is December 5 – the eve of St. Nicholas Day. To most of the US when Santa Clause appears at the end of the Thanksgiving Parade – the Christmas season officially begins! Until then enjoy Thanksgiving without a Christmas tree. * Those people that decorate so early are the first to take them down and end the season abruptly before its time. Please don’t do this. All that work decorating! Keep the Christmas spirit alive until January 6 – Epiphany at the earliest. I strongly recommend even go a week or two later. Just because they stop playing Christmas music on the radio Dec. 25th EXACTLY at midnight does not mean that the Christmas season is over and you have to decorate for Valentine’s Day. It’s really just the beginning of the Christmas season. In some European countries decorations are taken down [February 2 – Candlemas Day. ](https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/groundhog-day-candlemas/) Try to control the temptation to rush the holidays. DO NOT let commercialism rule your life! [⌊ugly christmas lighting⌉⌊ugly christmas lighting⌉[ There is a “P” “P” lit up on the second floor windows. What does that mean? Could it be the homeowner’s initials, or just a sloppy homeowner lacking integrity and common sense.   * Be consistent. Use the same type/size of lighting. Don’t use large bulbs in one place and smaller bulbs in another place. * Multi colored bulbs are good as are solid colors. I saw a house with all blue lights and it looked great but it just didn’t reproduce right on a camera. It’s best not to mix solid and multi colored bulbs.  Choose multi-colored or one single color only for outlining architecture. When painting your house you wouldn’t have multi-colored trim or each window a different color. All trim must be painted one color, so why do it now if you have any pride in your house.   [⌊warm and cool christmas lighting⌉⌊warm and cool christmas lighting⌉[ Don’t mix cool and warm lights. Also please put them on straight and do not be intoxicated when doing this. * Using white/clear lighting? Most new clear LED bulbs produce cool light. These lights have an ugly cold bluish tint. Know what you are buying. Clear warm lights are best and create a more pleasing feel. Some LED’s come in warm light but they are still not as warm as traditional lights. Even when a homeowner has enough sense to attach strings of lighting straight, it still never really works. The cool lights fight with the traditional warm lights. **NEVER mix cool lights with warm lights. **Let me better explain combining cool and warm colors below. [[ Tan pants are warm. The shirt is a warm olive green. This works great!   [⌊cool and warm colors.⌉⌊cool and warm colors.⌉[ Tan pants are warm. The shirt is cool, seafoam green. This combination is not the end of the world but best not combined. The colors do not compliment each other. [[ Cool white pants. Cool seafoam green shirt. Each color makes the other look good.   Recognizing the difference between warm and cool colors is essential for everything from fashion to interior design. For instance, in the first example, you see a mannequin wearing tan pants with a warm, olive-green shirt; the two colors complement each other beautifully. In the second example, the warm tan pants are paired with a cool seafoam-green shirt. While it’s not unattractive, it doesn’t harmonize as well as the first combination. In the third example, the seafoam-green shirt is paired with white pants, creating a great match. A green hue can be classified as cool or warm depending on whether it contains more blue or yellow. Seafoam green, for example, has more blue, making it cooler, while olive green contains more yellow, making it warmer. This distinction also applies to interior design: a warm sofa against a cool wall color can appear dingy or out of place because warm and cool tones tend to clash. Keep this in mind when decorating your space or putting together outfits, and you’ll achieve a cohesive, appealing look.   [⌊bad christmas decorations⌉⌊bad christmas decorations⌉[   * If you don’t have enough lights, get more. Don’t just stop in the middle of the porch like a crazy person. **Try to use** some common sense. * If  you want to put lights on your porch railing and the steps separate the railing into two sections, you can extend the lights across at the bottom of the steps to go up to the next railing. When doing this you must replace the bulbs with** dead bulbs or cover them with black tape in the area that should appear unlit** at the base of the steps. Don’t just continue the lit strand all the way across. This looks sloppy. Same thing for windows.   [⌊bad christmas lighting⌉⌊bad christmas lighting⌉[ * Please don’t do this! We are living in a civilized society – Surprise!   * Outlining your window? Seriously people – don’t allow a stream of lights to be visible from the outlet to the window or from window to window. **Replace those bulbs with dead bulbs or black tape** to keep it neat. This house looks very sloppy and the viewer may wonder if the interior of the house and residents are just as sloppy. Just imagine what the homeowners look like! [⌊tree lights⌉⌊tree lights⌉[ All this bad decorating is bad for your eyes so give your eyes a break here. These trees are lit beautifully!   * White lights around a deciduous tree? Lights should be wrapped around each branch to look as beautiful as the trees in the picture above. This is difficult to do and expensive when done by a professional. The results are amazing though! Be careful if you just wrap lights around the tree instead of the branches for it really won’t look good. If you can’t do a good job, best to not do it.   [⌊sloppy xmas lighting⌉⌊sloppy xmas lighting⌉[ Netting only covering part of the bushes, two different colors of lights on the porch eave and some sort of mess on the 2nd floor windows. * Lighting that comes in a net are convenient. Make sure they fit the shrub you are covering. Only covering a small portion shows the neighbors you can’t afford it and come from not the best background. Just don’t do it for the sake of doing it. ![bad decorators](https://www.oldhouseguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/fat-hillbillies. jpg) These guys decorate their house like they look.   [⌊bad xmas lights⌉⌊bad xmas lights⌉[ Do you really think this looks good? * Stores sell lot’s of decorations. Just because they sell them doesn’t mean you have to buy them. Stores need to come up with decorating gimmicks in order to make money. [⌊cool and warm lights⌉⌊cool and warm lights⌉[ This is an embarrassment because this house is down the street from me. What people do in my neighborhood reflects on me. Friends may question what kind of neighborhood do I live in. I do not know the owners, nor would I want to know them. I would be willing to pay for the Xmas lights to match. How lazy can someone be! **Your eyes are probably hurting from all this sloppy decorating. Here is some relief with some nicely decorated homes. These homeowners really show they have taste!** [⌊tasteful christmas lighting⌉⌊tasteful christmas lighting⌉[ Very tasteful, clean and neat. Beautifully decorated! [⌊great holiday decorating⌉⌊great holiday decorating⌉[ Not a nice McMansion of course but great decorating. [⌊christmas candles in windows - elegant⌉⌊christmas candles in windows - elegant⌉[ Simple and elegant. Ignore the plastic, incorrectly sized and mounted shutters. [⌊christmas lighting⌉⌊christmas lighting⌉[ Very elegant. Get ideas from good decorating not the bad as most people do. [⌊Good christmas lights⌉⌊Good christmas lights⌉[ This picture does not do the house justice. The colors are very nice, but what is essential to notice is that the lights on the house are NOT multicolored. They are gold, red, green. The lights on the plantings repeat those three colors and are spaced nicely, which provides balance. No drunk or embarrassing homeowners here. [⌊christmas lighting⌉⌊christmas lighting⌉[ Notice that the number of lights fit the space they are attached to. The top of the two small bays are lined with lights. They do not have additional lights hanging down the sides. Very neat! Break’s over, back to the bad decorating. [⌊inflatable christmas decorations⌉⌊inflatable christmas decorations⌉[ Even if you did not come from a trailer park – just because the kids like it doesn’t mean you have to do this to your neighborhood. By resisting blow-ups you can teach your child refinement which will greatly benefit them when they grow up. * Do not use inflatable yard decorations. They are cheap and tacky looking. I once listened to a radio show where people called in and passionately said how they hate them in their neighborhood and that they wanted to shoot them with a bebe gun. I’m sure/hope they never went to that extreme. I personally detest them and fortunately there are none in my neighborhood. **It’s Christmas – show you care for your neighborhood and decorate as if you were getting dressed to go to a wedding!** * The use of a single spotlight on your front door may be all you need. Simple, yet elegant. Don’t use a colored spotlight though. * Don’t use plastic bows. They look super cheap. Use felt covered (flocked) bows only. Yes, they will hold up in the rain. I’ve been using the same bows for years. * Candles in windows? Use clear warm bulbs only. No LED, colored, or worse yet multi-colored. * Blinking lights? Usually blinkers stay off more than they’re on. Use twinkling and make sure all your light strands do the same. [⌊colored light bulbs for christmas⌉⌊colored light bulbs for christmas⌉[ Do not use colored light bulbs. Lamppost and porch light. Do NOT put a colored bulb in your light. [⌊laser projection lighting⌉⌊laser projection lighting⌉[ Laser projection lighting. Laser projection lighting? These are slide projectors which cast moving shapes onto your house. Stick with clear snowflake type like the above only. Stay from tacky colors or projected images like in the photo above. Actually these are the best I have seen. A bit much but everything is done neatly and that is the main point of all this. [⌊very sloppy christmas lighting⌉⌊very sloppy christmas lighting⌉[ This is one of the sloppy house winners. notice the window on the right. The lights are just thrown to the side. Do these people dress as sloppy? So happy they are not my neighbors.   **“But it’s for the children”** I see so many people use excuses saying “it’s for the children”.  What a stupid comment by a bad parent. If a person has a lack of decorating ability or decorating sense, it’s not an excuse to blame it on an innocent child. Of course children love bright shinny stuff that attracts their attention. I would hope that a parent would try to inspire good taste for their children to learn in hope they wouldn’t do any of the above when they grow up. Teach them to appreciate good design as you would instill proper table manners. When grown they will display class and good breeding. Really though it’s not such a matter of bad decoration but SLOPPY decoration. If you can button your shirt straight you should be able to at least try to put the lights on straight. **Christmas lighting can add to the joy of the holiday season just as a well kept house can add to the beauty of the neighborhood.  There is sloppy Christmas decorating just like there is sloppy landscaping and sloppy looking people. Just because it is Christmas should not make it acceptable. Instead one should up the game and do their best. Decorating is decorating. Some people are better at decorating their living room and matching colors and some people are not. That is why there are designers that know what to look for to get the best look. I hope homeowners can learn from seeing these bad examples and get some ideas to improve the curb appeal of their homes and neighborhoods. Hopefully you can see mistakes and learn from them.** ![good christmas lighting](https://www.oldhouseguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ Untitled-1-600x552.jpg) Here is a very good example. Notice how neat the house looks. So different from the drunks that decorated those above and couldn’t install lighting in a straight line. House is outlined with Christmas lights that are straight and neat looking. This house does not look like the homeowner was drunk when decorating. Shrubs have net lighting that covers the full shrub. VERY neat and tasteful. Credit of this photo is from [Christmas Light Source – Design Guidelines. ](https://www.christmas-light-source.com/pages/christmas-lights-design-guides) Check out their info on design guidelines. [⌊griswald christmas lights⌉⌊griswald christmas lights⌉[ Way over the top! Not sloppy though. Did you see the movie Griswald Christmas? We all know the famous Griswald house and movie. What are my thoughts on this? Yes it is over the top but it shows more organization that the other houses here. I say go-for-it! ![giant salt lick for reindeer](https://www.oldhouseguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/ 11/salt-lick-600x331.jpg) Giant Salt-Lick for Santa’s reindeer. Then for those of us that are animal-friendly, why not get a giant salt-lick for your roof. While Santa is in your parlor decorating your tree, his reindeer can have a party.