19 December 2004

Lights of a different color

Given that I only have about ten feet of deck to work with (and no yard), my options for outdoor holiday decorating are extremely limited. However, the following things will never, EVER be found in my yard for the holidays:

1) eight foot high blow-up creatures. I don't care if the Santa!Homer is kinda funny. They're tacky as all hell.

2) lighted deer with moving heads. (Do they realize how creepy it is to see those while driving)

3) Those 1950's plastic figures that are the Christmas equivalent of garden gnomes

4) Spotlights on my garage door with some weird decorative frame over the light to say "Happy holidays"

What you will find in my decorations are completely unconventional colors. I try to avoid white, red, and green. They're too common. Multicolored lights? Nah. I did that in college. Again-- too common. I'd like to be somewhat original, even if it's a sloppy mess of original.

This year, we went for unconventional colors, and unintentionally came near-Mardi Gras with our choices. :) Since we are on a high, open balcony, the icicle stringled lights do look really good. We selected blue ones (avoiding traditional white). They're more of a cyan blue than a deep blue, though.

To make sure they're straight (because nothing says ghetto like sloppily hung icicle lights), we wrapped a beautiful purple string of lights around the entire top rail of our deck fence. It's very bright, looks good, and is a more unusual combo. I like it. :)

On the inside of the doorframe to the living room, we hung a string of gold (and these are the warmest gold lights I've ever seen). Since we didn't put up a Yule tree this year (we'll be out of town), we needed something small to decorate. The gold gives a very soft, cozy glow to the room.

And I've heard rumors that it's supposed to snow tonight. White Christmas, perhaps?

No comments: