My neighbours are putting up fairy lights and decorations on the infamous blue tree

[FrannyandZooey]

Yes that's right, the one that they chopped all the branches off and painted blue to match their garage. I guess it didn't look pretty enough for them now it HAD NO BRANCHES ON

I will get a photo after nightfall so we can all tut at them.

i missed the photo last time around - it was multi-coloured by the time i got to it

photo in daylight please!

Oh I will try to find it Tutter

it is probably still there on Member Profiles somewhere is it?

Here is the tree in its non festive glory:

Hmmmm

Why on Earth did they do that to their tree??! Seriously to match their garage?!?!? Ugly!!

How very odd!

it does look very posh, doesn't it? I think it's all the...erm...trees. It is a fab 70s housing estate with lots of established gardens...oh, and this garden which has gravel on and a blue stump. We love it here but it is definitely not posh.

There are so many strings of lights on the tree now, I can hardly wait for evening for the full effect. I think you will be impressed.

pmsl I remember the tree...wonder what it will look like in the lights.

interesting use of bricks to edge their garden too

OMG, that is utterly disgusting. What a bizarre thing to do to a tree

our front garden was done by the previous owners and is just a paved driveway

I am getting sooooo excited about Christmas on the estate again, actually...everybody goes completely berserk with lights and I am only slightly ashamed to admit I totaly love it

One of the streets near MIL's goes mad, and some people have decorations that make noise.

You've got to get some, Frances.

And then put them up on the Blue Tree!

The oddest thing about the tree is that it has inspired copycat trees. A friend of mine on the estate has done one orange in her back garden

There is also a local artist who goes around painting tree stumps like this, but he makes sure they are dead first and doesn't just cut them down for his own amusement

Tackola! What a waste of energy resources, too.

OMG what sort of noise? We need some

I mean

tackola! what a waste of energy resources

They sing Christmas carols.

These two houses in particular go completely loopy. They have Father Christmas dangling from a parachute in the eaves, etc etc etc.

Oddly enough, there are these two mad houses, and lots of "for sale" signs near them.

No we're in deepest Essex. It is the nicest place I have ever lived, though, we are very happy

Oh we have the FC parachuting one here. It's on the same house that has FC on a banana, funnily enough. We don't have any For Sale signs, though - everyone seems to love it. You meet a lot of people doing the tour in the evenings and comparing notes on their favourites. There's even a prize given out for the best (i.e. most completely insane) house.

swinging santa on a giant banana..... ???

This will be our first Christmas in this house so I have no idea to what lengths the neighbours go wrt to outside decs. I suspect the answer is no lengths at all.

Dp says it is a crescent moon but I am sure it is a banana. That one won last year, anyway.

dh uses the national grid to light up our house
but we have moved haha
and he cant find a way to plug them in except through the basement
I have hundreds of pounds of lights, father crimbos, trains, bells you name it sitting there gathering dust

DH wants to get some plain white outside lights for our big tree this year. I have no idea where he thinks he'll plug them in, or indeed how he'll get the lights into the tree, but hey ho. He is the king of the half-baked plan....