Maximalist Color or Classic White? My Outdoor Christmas Light Dilemma
The big debate in our home this holiday season is whether to put up colored or white outdoor lights. As many of you saw in my stories over the fall, we remodeled our front porch and no longer have railings. I’ve owned the same colored lights for close to 10 years now, and while once upon a time I was a white-light girl, that changed when my sister scored one of those can’t-pass-up Black Friday deals on the Phillips big-bulb colored lights and “sold” them to me.
Can we pause for a second to talk about how Black Friday used to be SO FUN? My sisters, mom, and I would wait up every year on Thanksgiving — falling asleep on the couch as we digested our meal — just to gear up to head out into the chaos around midnight. We’d stay up all night shopping, laughing, and scoring the best deals. Then we’d go get breakfast around 3–4am. It was the best. Black Friday just doesn’t hit the same anymore.
Anyway, I must not have been with her that year to score this amazing deal, but props to Tiff for thinking of her domesticated big sis trying to make her first house a home for the holidays. At the time, she wasn’t even a homeowner yet and couldn’t have cared less about Christmas lights. Now that she has a family and home of her own, she jokingly says she’ll buy them back. Haha!
So while I wouldn’t have chosen colored lights a decade ago, I’m always one to recognize a good deal — and over the years, I’ve grown to love them. Now that I've really settled into my design aesthetic as someone who loves color, they feel even more appropriate.
But back to the porch … and the fact that we no longer have railings. I usually wrap my lights around the railings, so I brought up to my family that I’m not quite sure how to approach decorating this year. Wrap the new pillars? How do I get from one pillar to the next without cords everywhere? Put them on the bushes? We don’t really have any substantial evergreen bushes. Put them in the trees? How would we even reach? Can my husband bring home a manlift? (He’s in the equipment business, after all.)
No, he says. He’d need a trailer — he doesn’t have a pull-behind manlift right now — and that sounds like a lot of trouble for Christmas lights. Honestly, I’m starting to see why people hire someone to hang their Christmas lights. Good grief.
In the midst of all this, my girls (10 and 13) chime in and announce that they want white lights this year. “They’re so aesthetic,” they say. “So preppy!” And suddenly I’m questioning everything. Should I make the switch? What do I do with the colored garland and wreath I spent a small fortune on? How much are Christmas lights these days anyway? What would I do with my amazing Black Friday lights that I’ve cherished all these years?
Not to mention — my neighbor across the street told me she really likes looking out her window every year and admiring my colored lights.
So yes, the full-on house debate is officially underway:
Nostalgic, warm, cozy, festive colored lights that fit my maximalist aesthetic?
or
Classic, elegant, Pinterest-worthy, minimalist-but-magical white lights?
You know what’s really elegant? Using the lights I already paid for. I might not have paid a lot (thank you, Black Friday deal from long ago), but they are paid for nonetheless.
Maybe we compromise and do a mix of both? Maybe we swap every other year? Colored outside, white inside? The possibilities are endless.
So tell me — are you Team White Lights or Team Colored Lights? I have a few more days to decide, and I’m going to ponder it a bit more. Maybe I’ll even check out the Black Friday deals this year and see if I can score another bargain.
At the end of the day, whether the lights are white, colored, blinking, twinkling, or a little tangled, it’s the tradition of putting them up together that matters most.
