Christmas lights and the neighbours

[rhuhbarb4]

I really need some mumsnet perspective here as to whether I ABU.

We have lived in our current house for 3 years this will be our 4th christmas here. Every year we have put outside lights up on our house and decorated our windows so they look nice to the outside.

The first year 5 days after putting our net lights up the next door neighbors brought some fair enough I thought maybe they liked mine and wanted their house to look nice too. Ever since then they have brought exactly the same as what we have and it has started to really annoy me as I like to be different.

Then comes this year they have decorated their house like it is a landing pad for aeroplanes and they have gone totally over the top. I went out the front as they were out there and was having a friendly chat with them and talking about the lights and the lady who lives there said well we decided to do the lights like this because we didn't want to be in your shadow anymore. I don't really know how to take that?

The lights aren't the only thing they copy us with though we brought a new car they brought a new car not the same make but a 4x4 like ours, she has started dressing her dd the same as I dress mine (they go to the same nursery) we redid our front garden they did, we brought the kids some outdoor play equipment they did, we brought a new bbq they did you get the picture they copy is down to a T.

I am actually really angry about it all but my dh says that I should let it go and be flattered they want to be like us so mumsnet jury what do you think AIBU?

awaywiththepixies wow I really don't know how you manage to put up with that I hear some horrow stories about neighbours and you seem to have landed 2 of them.

Do you have too much time on your hands?

Thanks rhuhbarb

Thank god everyone picked up on broughtgate.

OP, please stop saying brought instead of bought I will lose sleep over this.

All those posters saying there is more to worry about than Christmas lights are right.
Maybe the same logic could be applied to the brought/bought thing now. It really only needed mentioning once (if at all)

When DS was little we walked up and down my mum's road to admire all the Christmas lights. We treated it like a little competition to decide who we thought was the 'winner'. DS then insisted on writing a letter to the house to tell them that they had won. I delivered it under cover of darkness and I always wonder what they thought....

I remember when I was about 5 or 6, asking my teacher how to spell 'brought' and she asked me to say the sentence in which I wanted to use it, so I said "we went to the shops and brought some beans" or something like that. The teacher explained that the word I needed was 'bought, not 'brought'. I was amazed! I had never heard the word 'bought' before, because my parents both mistakenly used 'brought' in that context.

I remember telling my mum what the teacher had said, that the two words beginning with 'br' go together (bring and brought) and the two beginning with 'b' go together (buy and bought). A simple rule, never forgotten.

OP I know because our first Christmas she told me that she doesnt do them because she doesn't like outside lights and other neighbours have also commented on her buying lights ever since we moved in

I find it unbelievable weird and creepy that other neighbours (plural no less ) have commented about your neighbours lights and the fact that she bought them since you moved in. That's seriously peculiar of them both to notice and to then to gossip about it to you.

Not sure if anybody else has picked up on this.

You sound paranoid op. I doubt you and they are the only people who are doing things like decorating their house for Xmas, maintaining their property, owning a bbq. Unless your kids clothes are one offs there will be many other kids wearing the same. Sounds like you're annoyed they've got more hideous outdoor lights than you.

There seems to be an awful lot of trendsetters on mumsnet, with a lot of threads from people being endlessly copied by their friends and family. More likely, your tastes are as middle of the road as possible and in no way unique. People wind up with a lot of the same stuff because there are only so many choices out there!

They brought their car where?

The "TWAT" sign suggested by a couple of people upthread is possibly a little agressive but how about a minimal less is more in simple monochrome lights, nothing else.

My money is on the neighbour's lights spelling 'bought not brought' this year

I'd not bother with the outdoor lights this yea,r and just have a laugh to myself about their electricity bill.

Although the "in your shadow" comment actually sounds like she was trying to be complementary?

My kids have a good laugh at the houses round ehre with tacky lights/inflatable santas, round here. They'll ask for us to drive past certain houses, on our way to our usual haunts. I suspect you're taking your lights more seriously than... anyone else.

I find that people who think others are copying them are generally incredibly self obsessed. It's highly unlikely that anyone spent tens of thousands of pounds on a new car just because you did, you're just not that important.

They brought their car where?

'Where did they take their car', surely?

Omg bastards! Burn their house down.

Has anybody mentioned Deck The Halls yet?

Well, I am going to go against the grain here and say Yanbu OP - it would get on my tits too. Don't they have a single original idea in their heads?!

That being said, I dont think that there is realistically anything you can do about it so you need to try not to care about it or it will drive you around the twist. Perhaps you could try pitying them for their lack of originality and the weird sense of competition they have which makes them need to "not be outdone".