Okay, let’s try a light-hearted Honest Monday, shall we? Christmas lights. I like warm white strands. HH prefers LED’s. My kids want as many different colors as possible. And blinking. Lots of blinking. Oh, the abrupt blinking. It’s like Christmas lights in GIF format. Sorry. Inside blogger joke. Anyhow, after a four-year boycott of exterior Christmas lights {the reason for which we don’t speak of around these parts}, HH decided it was time to give them another chance. The kids want lights on their house and who are we to deny them?
In an effort to try and please everyone, HH found LED color changing lights at Home Depot UPDATE: Meijer. This should show how often HH and I ‘talk with our faces’ as HH refers to it. I can’t keep up with him and he can’t keep up with me. Ahhhh! {I can’t find a link to them online but for anyone who might be interested they are the ‘color change series’ brand and come in strands of 35 lights.} These lights have four settings – off, warm white, multicolored, continuous switch from white to colored – that can be changed with the included remote control. You heard me right. I said remote control. LED’s + remote control = an engineer moonlighting as an elf.
HH hung seven strands PERFECTLY STRAIGHT around the front and sides of the house just at the gutter line. I said something about how nice it would look with lights along the rooflines as well but HH said climbing up on a wet metal roof to hang Christmas lights would be the end of him. Good point.
The white is a warm white. Not blue like many LED’s. We set them to white when we’re going for a classic, sophisticated look. Teehee.
Most of the time they’re on the multicolored setting. The kids like it best. We haven’t mentioned the blinking thing and I don’t think we will. I wish my pictures showed the true color of this setting. In person, they are much livelier and deeper in color.
I have to admit. The colored lights are growing on me. Life’s too short for white Christmas lights.
In regards to Christmas light hanging, I married my father. My dad takes pride in hanging a perfectly straight Christmas light strand. Until HH, I never met anyone else who put so much effort into lining Christmas lights up like soldiers. Layne spent the night with my dad a few weeks ago after HH had hung our lights. My dad happened to hang his lights the day Layne was visiting. He was outside for less than an hour when Layne went out to check his progress.
Layne: Wow! Grandpa, did you do all that just now?
Grandpa: Yeah.
Layne: Wow. My dad didn’t even put up that many lights and it took him THREE days!
There’s an ongoing family joke about this now. So maybe my dad is more efficient but HH’s strands are just as straight.
What about you? Do you prefer white or colored lights? Are you all business on the outside with a multicolored party going on inside? Have you ever tried color changing lights?
images: Dana Miller for House*Tweaking
budget decor, DIY, family life, kid-friendly