Coloured or white lights for the Christmas tree?

[IsItIorAreTheOthersCrazy]

Please help!

I usually have White lights on my tree (I have just followed my mums lead since I moved out 10 years ago) but am thinking of changing them.

Last year we bought our first fake tree as we were away a lot and will be using it again this year. It's a 7ft green tree with some pine cones and berries on it. Our decorations are mainly gold, red and white with some random ones dotted throughout which I love as it feels more homely and less uniform. My nan had a random Christmas tree with coloured lights and mismatched homemade decorations and I loved it.

We don't have a huge budget and I don't want to waste money on lights that I then don't like but my imagination doesn't stretch to picturing my tree in any other way than with white lights.

Hardly a first world problem I know but some opinions would be great please!

No tinsel though, I draw the line at that
My tinsel won't look like tinsel. It will make my tree look extra-luxuriant.

We do have tinsel, just not on the tree, hanging decorations only on that.

White! Always white.

I like a couple of bits of silver tinsel on my tree.

Both... more is more at Christmas!

White. As for tinsel, well it does add a certain 1970s naffness to a tree and reminds us that the designer Xmas has not always been with us.

My kids (grown up) always say my tree is too tasteful and naff it up a bit for me when they arrive home.

I didn't expect it be to such a hard decision!

I'm leaning towards coloured lights and then going back next year if I don't like them, although I love decorhate's idea of having both sets.

I am also considering tinsel - Our fake tree has some gaps and I was thinking of wrapping green tinsel around the centre so the lights twinkle and reflect and distract from the spaces. Is that the worst idea ever?

The designer Christmas tree will never be seen in our house .

We've had white lights for about a decade but this year I feel the need to go back to my childhood so I'm buying coloured lights. I'll string the white lights around the house instead.

I have a mixture of lights-
the tree has prelight white lights (not enough though) so I add some more white and some of the really tiny white lights (can't remember what they're called but no shades and miniscule)

A couple of years ago, I wanted some of the goldeny warm lights that were popular. DH ordered some online, they were orange and nasty white cable not blendy-in-green.

I had tiny coloured lights on a faux swag on top of the kitchen units .

Last year we finally ditched or old bulb lights for LED ones - all warm white. It just didn't feel like Xmas! So this year I've got an additional set of coloured LED so we can use both!

I'm also feeling it's the moment to go back to coloured lights - have always had a super-tasteful tree but now that feels a bit boring! I'm also re-living my 80s childhood now I have DD.

Only the lovely red and pastel kind of old-fashioned coloured lights though, I don't fancy these newfangled too-bright saturated coloured lights with blue in them (Christmas trees should not have blue lights!! ;) )

Our 7ft fake tree has pre strung lights and has a remote. It lets you change from white to multi and has a blinking option too. So we change it up/depends on who is playing with the remote.

Coloured lights would be fine if they didn't all have blue in them. So we have white.

Warm white, there'll be enough kitsch on my tree with the flamingo, Elvis, South Park and Star Wars baubles.

I always used to prefer coloured lights, but I don't like the colours of the LED ones you get now.
They are a bit too emergency services to me, I don't want that shade of blue, or that red, it's a christmas tree, not a police car!
I want pale blue and pink and orangey yellow, like on the trees of my childhood, but I can't find those colours now, so I go with warm white, and lots of colourful decorations. But it is not quite the same.

Honestly, the anxious tasteful 'colour-theming' matchy-matchiness about Christmas trees is a bit depressing. It goes up for a week or two a year as a sort of pagan fist-shaking against the darkest weeks - no one's going to come in shake their head and damn you for your tinsel or multi-coloured lights the way they (judging by Mn, at least) damn you for your feature walls/twigs in a vase/ wicker hearts/Travertine bathroom.

Last year did the tasteful white lights and colour themed decorations bit (the tree was smaller than usual).Wasnt really 'us' .So back to the four strings-2white 2coloured-and everything but the kitchen sink look this year .

White lights on the all white and silver tasteful (?) tree in the dining room, coloured in the sitting room; very big tree, lots of old and random decs. One year we swapped them, the sittingroom seemed far too austere and unfestive.

White lights here.

In fact I just made DH bought 1000 white LED ones from B&M's yesterday as I needed them .

You can never have too many lights at christmas. I have all down my staircase as well.

DH tried to tell me I had too many, as if.

INeedACheeseSlicer I still have my parents' old coloured lights from when they went tasteful about ten years ago - in those lovely old-fashioned pastel colours! Every year I think about putting them on and then I don't in case the 20-year-old electrics go bust on me (or cause a fire...) But I too don't like the garish bright coloured LED ones that are about now.

I say boooo to boring old white lights. It's Christmas, it's supposed to be colourful not stylish! Why would you have lights that are the same colour as every other bulb in the house?

White. Beads not tinsel.

Yes, Dreamies lots of beads, but untangling them is far worse than Christmas lights.

So I think I'm settled on coloured lighs. Sorry to all the white light posters but my mums tree a perfectly coordinated piece of art with white lights and it just doesn't feel like christmas to me.

Next question - how many lights do I need for a 7ft tree?

Oh and - to add tinsel or not?