I grew up with colored lights and FH grew up with white. This is our fourth Christmas together, third living together, and our compromise is white lights outdoors and colored on the tree. Other indoor lights are random colors, including white. So far this has worked out well; in fact while we were driving around looking at xmas lights the other night, he remarked, "Colored lights have really grown on me; I used to
hate them!" Yesssssss.
The debate can grow quite heated. Colored lights are often seen as "redneck" with white lights being classier. Your thoughts? Which do you prefer?
Photos of our decorations this year! Sorry that many of the images are blurry or grainy. I'm usually quite particular about that but it's hard to get it clear in low light!
Please post your photos too!Tree and arch

Fireplace and mantle

Miscellaneous decor including more detailed pic of mantle decor - these candles are battery op from Costco. They flicker and look so nice! They are waxy and slightly vanilla-scented. A+ and I bought 7 packs (of 11, 3 large pillars, 4 votive and 4 tea light) to use at the wedding. The garland and little sprigs are from Dollar Tree.

Lighted garland with tree in mirror!

Table - $1 tablecloth from Dollar Tree (I think I might register for a nice xmas tablecloth!). It's for Christmas Eve with FH's family but I needed to make sure it fit so I just left it on. Fake poinsettia pot in the middle; can't have a real one with cats.

Really hard to get a good pic of this, but this is the kissing ball that was in my parents' house growing up. My mom gave it to me in 2013 because they moved to their new house which is super open concept and there were no doorways or arches to hang it from. I attached it to a Dollar Tree garland with red lights and red/white poinsettia leaves from Dollar Tree.

Christmas card ribbon

Mini tree in the living room. Sort of half-assed the garlands, I was a little bit over decorating at this point lol. Fun fact: this is my American Girl doll tree! LOL! I had Molly because I'm a four eyes and she had glasses.

Outside lights. A bit monotonous for my taste but FH likes it. I think next year I will string red lights along with the white ones on the railing to break it up a bit.

Bonus pic of cat under the tree

They leave it alone, surprisingly, and don't try to climb or attack.

Thanks for looking! Hope you enjoyed!
Re: Christmas lights: white or colored? Decorations PIP
After we got married, I bought a bunch of colored lights! But now, I kind of like the classic white look with some gold and colored balls maybe. When I drive along one of the main roads where we live, I can see through the window of a house and they have a white tree, white lights, white ribbon and white ornaments, and it's gorgeous!
So now, I don't know. H and I don't have a tree. We probably won't get one this year at this point. I do have colored lights up on our window and I do like them.
I don't have my tree up yet, but I am all about multi-color lights. This is the first year I've had some white ones! They're technically for "outdoors" although they are in the windows so obviously I get to enjoy them inside too.
Will try to edit for a pic.
I have 3 little fake trees in the house. 2 have white, 1 colored. No real reason other than they came that way.
But truth be told, the lights in my big window are "warm white" LED and they do not offend me at all. I had my doubts ordering them on amazon, but I love them!
White lights all the way. My parents always insisted on white lights growing up. At some point they allowed us kids to have our own tree with colored lights in our game room and we could decorate it however we wanted to. (Mom was always super anal about how the tree looked).
DH really didn't have an opinion either way. I had bought this pre-lit artificial tree the year before we met, so he didn't have any disagreements.
Whaaat? I grew up in the days of "A Christmas Story". Nobody had white lights! Nobody! When he miniature light sets came out, this was the first time I ever saw all white light sets. I do remember the color wheel that aimed on our fashionable aluminum tree in 1960.
Outdoor Christmas decorations are like outdoor Halloween decorations - they are tacky as hell and great fun! Our neighbor across the street has more than $1000 worth of blow-up figures, including a snowman that is bigger than his house and a giant Rudolph on his roof. His house and trees are festooned with lights. It is a bit creepy, but so many children come by to look at it, and people stop and take photos of their kids in front of some of the blow up figures.
This is my daughter's outdoor display:
Um, Merry Christmas?
Anyway, I prefer white lights. Not really sure why. Multicolor lights aren't bad at all, I just prefer the white ones.
They do look really nice! I think maybe the single-strand ones are okay because they're not so bright. When I wrote my comment I was thinking of one house in particular that had LED white icicles and net lights on their bushes. They were very cold, blue, and bright.
LED colored lights are okay, especially outside. I still prefer the incandescent ones, though!
As a kid, we had our house in colored lights, and we also had a set of 3 reindeer outside (among other different inflatables over the years). One night a group of kids stacked the reindeer to make it look like they were humping; that was the last time they were outside (besides the fact that they broke because of being stacked like that). After that we had a set of reindeer that were on stands that made it look like they were flying off with Santa.
ETA: pictures. Unfortunately one of our cats decapitated one of the three wise men, so he's out till I get some superglue.
*sigh* gorgeous. Only 600 lights on ours, 3 strands regular and one strand multifunction (flashing, fading, twinkling, etc.).
My mom has switched up her decor the last couple of years. She used to exclusively use white lights but now she does mostly light with some colored light strings accenting a few things in front of her house and she also does colored lights on her tree. I actually (surprisingly) like the look. I grew up with all white lights but I really adore how she's started to incorporate more color.
I always thought I would have a "pretty" tree, and then a random ornament tree, but right now I only have a few ransoms that they are on the tree too. So I have all red and gold ornaments, then a wedding one we got as a gift, a teacher one, and one my niece made. Eventually I'll have enough to have two trees so maybe then I can try the white lights.
We're almost to the point of needing a second tree. Ours is in the family room now, so it looks great inside, but you can't really see it from the outside. (Unless you're in our backyard, in which case, creeper.) I like when you can see them through people's front windows, so we may get a second one for the living room next year. And I would definitely put the "nice" ornaments on that one.
My sister has one in her family rooms that has the "nice" ornaments and the "kid" one is down stairs in their basement (which is nicer than most people's family or living rooms ) The family gifts were upstairs and Santa's gifts are left in the basement.
Outside, we compromised and have mainly white lights with some red strewn in, as well as red light bulbs and red wreaths. I also collect reindeer so we have a good dozen or so of those guys around the house.
@Heffalump I'm a flashing fan as well, although I prefer the kind that cycles through different settings rather than just blinking on and off, which looks weird to me.