Why don't people use coloured lights anymore?!

[80sColourfulChristmas]

I was born in the early eighties and I have fond memories of colour, colour & more colour at Christmas! We even had those god-awful foil decorations criss-crossing the ceiling of the living room. Foil honeycomb balls dangling and giant unfolded foil stars.

The foil I don't miss particularly, but what has happened to colourful lights?!

I realise that with the (much needed) switch to LED, the new multi coloured lights aren't quite as pretty as they used to be (why is that?!) but why has this meant that seemingly the majority of people have defaulted to a simple set of boring white lights with just a handful of plain, boring ornaments on their tree?! (Still looks pretty of course it just isn't Christmas as I know it!)

I remember looking admirably at our beautiful tree as a child, stuffed full of all kinds of colourful glass ornaments which had been passed down through my Mum's family from the 1800s. The prettiest tinsel you've ever seen, lametta, beads, bells on beads, the lights had lovely cone shaped 'petals' round them so they glowed beautifully, reflecting off the glass, lametta and tinsel. It was stunning. Fond memories.

Can't have just been us, surely? Anyone else still go for the overloaded, 80s style multicolored Christmas look?!

This year I've ordered LED multi coloured cluster lights for the first time, but still have some traditional style lights for the tree and have used them every year until now. Not sure how pretty our tree is going to look....

I have coloured lights, tinsel and I bought lametta on the weekend. We never had lametta growing up (child of the 90s) so I'm not exactly sure what to do with it but the kids wanted it and the tree is going up this weekend so we shall see

We had lights that were shaped like flowers and baubles that kind of curved in on one side with a pattern in the middle. Think they were really thin metal, they broke easily and my dad wouldn’t let us touch them until I was older. We also always had the foil decorations on the ceiling and one would always fall down and startle everyone.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

Lovely memory of my childhood coloured lights reflecting off the quality street tin.

Oh dear this is what coloured tree lights remind me of -tins of Quality Street 😬

Loath coloured lights , just ghastly.

I have 15m of coloured along my fence and coloured lights in my windows , the ones along the guttering on house are yellow lights though

I love coloured lights

Your post made me smile, OP. We had the same hideous shiny foil decorations across our ceiling. No idea what happened but you triggered lovely memories 😀

Only coloured lights here.
I want my Christmas warm and nostalgic not looking like an Ikea catalogue.
All my tree decorations are family hand me downs.
If anyone has any of those lantern or Cinderella carriage lights from Pifco etc they go for about £300 on eBay.

Oh my word. I am loving this thread. I live all the pictures of trees. I want one!

Which Noma ones? The Canterbury belles or the Victorian lanterns?

I must be old when i feel nostalgic about foil decorations criss crossing the ceiling and fold out hanging stars!
I have two trees, one has white lights the other has mulitcoloured fairy light with glass shades you can still buy them- go for it! I think they look pretty and remind me of childhood

@PodgeBod

I have coloured lights, tinsel and I bought lametta on the weekend. We never had lametta growing up (child of the 90s) so I'm not exactly sure what to do with it but the kids wanted it and the tree is going up this weekend so we shall see

Just drape the strans on the branches, a few here and there. Creates a waterfall effect. Mum loved lametta, always had it.

@frewer

keeprocking, I'm with you about poinsettias, really hoping to get my usual pink this year.

Try Aldi, my local one had some red, pink and white ones in. I got a red one, but might get a pink one if there's any left.

@Oblomov20 I have the belles x 2

I just wanted something bright and cheerful. John Lewis are doing xmas themes and I pretty much bought their whole 'pop art' section.

Are you me?

@TheRubyRedshoes

www.twinkly.com

I got mine from amazon but might be oos now. I think John Lewis do the smaller sets but I wanted the 400 light ones

All this has reminded me of the time, msny years ago, that mum shorted out the lights circuit in the front of the house. She was putting up streamers and accidentally put a drawing pin into an electrical wire that was running along the top of the picture rail. Dad was a bit cross, as I recall How she didn't electrocute herself, I'll never know.

I like coloured lights. Providing they are not the glaringly bright ones.
We have a ' traditional' tree in the sitting room, lots of decorations and with coloured lights, while the dining room one is deorated in white and silver.
One year we decided to swap, and had the 'tasteful' one in the sittingroom. We all hated it, not at all warm and cosy, we never did that again.

My mum grew up in the 70s so we had foil decs festooning the ceilings and coloured lights with little crowns on. Those lights are the things I get most nostalgic about there was red, pink, orange, indigo, green and turquoise colours on it.
The other thing which made Christmas for me was the smell of the wrapping paper. I think they were cheap sheets you'd get about 5 for a £1 at the market, but I used to love sniffing the presents! And it was real paper.

We do coloured lights and a totally joyous mismatched colourful tree. It's full of tinsel and random decorations.

Omg. I have a set of the lantern pifco lights. They are so old they have a 2-prong plug with a special adaptor- i haven't used them for about ten years as I was worried about causing a fire - they still work though. My dream is to somehow get them re-strung on new wires as the colours are so warm and lovely - probably not possible. I just can't bring myself to get rid of them. I loved them so m7ch as a child - my gran worked for pifco in the 70's and thus everyone in the family had a set. Mine are alternate large and small lanterns.

(I mean, I wouldn't risk them on the tree, ive plugged them in to test them)

Mine are like these (not this actual set) www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Pifco-1299-Set-20-London-Lights-Christmas-All-Working-Hong-Kong-ESSEX-1/283467839880?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&itemid=283467839880&targetid=1000009158187&device=m&mktype=pla&googleloc=1007278&campaignid=10199419129&mkgroupid=101401892585&rlsatarget=pla-1000009158187&abcId=1145984&merchantid=9649844&gclid=CjwKCAiA-_L9BRBQEiwA-bm5fjW-UjH0EguXC05_F59sNxk7lFDsPoiyHpar5CAHOI5h-1ekLbbsMhoCyE4QAvD_BwE&pageci=972bc4a1-abe1-4dd5-a4f2-1b6834ec8462

They look lovely @Embolio .

[quote TurquoiseDragon]**@Ginkypig

I had the foil ceiling garlands right up until the Christmas before last but they snapped and I can’t find the correct length to replace them

My late mum liked to have the foil garlands, and a large ceiling area. So she used to get two or three identical ones, and carefully staple the ends together to get the length she wanted.[/quote]
Thank you @TurquoiseDragon!

I’ll keep that in mind for next time I’m looking

I’m sure this has been said already but I put two sets of lights on my tree- one white and one coloured so depending on my mood I can have tasteful white or nostalgic coloured.

I've ordered some for this year- the older style colour ones with warm tones though- pink, yellow warm white

The ones they sell in all the shops which just glow red blue and green are ghastly!!!

I'm thinking of putting lots of these on the tree and nothing else!