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....

8 ft tree with lots and lots of warm white lights and pearly white and silver bead swags and lots of glass/white/pale sparkly pink decs. I run the lights up and down the trunk first so that the inner branches are lit and i think it look gorgeous :)

I grew up with coloured lights on the tree (and round the doors and up the banisters and across the windows). I am nostalgic for them but about 3 years ago i bought a big coloured set and spent the afternoon doing the tree ... and then the next day i took it all off again and put the warm white back on. I just found the coloured lights too garish and gave me a headache!

Hmm... I think I’m going to back out of this thread now with my colour coordinated tree and warm white twinkly (not flashing but have to twinkle) lights. I am changing my colour scheme this year though and I have to have a colour, not just white decorations. And my decorations are picked to reflect my twinkly lights so my living room twinkles. I don’t have kids and will probably just let them fill the tree with colourful plastic decorations when I do and I still include the sentimental baubles (or the ones I like anyway).

I was born in the 90’s and my mum has always had colour coordinated trees but these descriptions and photos are reminding me of the Christmas decorations at primary school, which were definitely still based on the 80’s. Foil garlands across the whole roof of the hall, shining over my Christmas school lunch of turkey in a bag. Those weird furry/cotton thread baubles

My strongest memory of xmas trees is when my dad used to drive us from West London into central London to visit my nan. I used to love looking at all the massive trees which were outside all the big business buildings and office blocks on the way. To my childs eyes each one was bigger and more colourful than the last. Then the actual London xmas street lights! (when you used to be able to drive up Oxford St) Amazing! :)

We went back to full colour last year and I love it. Tree and outdoor lights are all colour.

@BlueThistles Noma do very similar fairy lights with flower and lantern shades

I have a set of soft pastel multi coloured lights. They are not harsh like the the LED ones that seem to be everywhere . I found them a few years ago after searching for ages but haven't seen any similar ones since. They remind me of the multi coloured ones we used to have on our tree in the 70s when I was a child

I love them and am hoping they last a few more years yet

I’ve done white lights and glass/white/silver decorations for a few years but decided to go back to coloured lights last year.
DS(23) never seemed interested usually but he was utterly outraged and gave me stick every time he saw them until the tree came down

I’m going back to the white lights as I honestly prefer them on my tree, shall let him think he’s won though

Tbh, there’s no such thing as a bad tree, my mother has mismatched decorations that go back decades, the tree looks like it’s covered in reindeer vomit and yet it still has a certain charm!

I saw some in my local post office the other day!

Most standalone post offices (ie not in Smith's or Rymans) seem to be stuck in a timewarp, in my experience. The ones you saw probably were from 1985!! I'm sure most of the birthday cards I've seen in the post office are, complete with dust.

@80sColourfulChristmas, I still had all those foil decorations from the photo in your post at 20.13, but think I've recently thrown all or most of them away. I'll have to check and see if I kept any.

I like some colour, but tend to stick with static blue and some colours on our tree. We have a mixture of ice white (I don't like the warm white as it's too yellow) and traditional colours for windows and outside.

We normally put our tree, etc, up 12 nights before (as per tradition), but are planning on putting them up nearer the beginning of Dec this year.

They're original decorations from the 70s/80s as I inherited them from my parents when I first left home and I've just kept and used them ever since, although I must confess that I've not put them up for the last 4 or 5 years.

Some were looking a bit worse for wear so I sorted through them earlier this year, but can't remember if I kept any.

I'm another early 80s child :-) I'm going down the nostalgic route this year - I've bought hanging decorations for the ceiling and me and DD are going to make paper chains and hang them from the corners to the middle of the room! I'm not religious but I'm going to put the nativity up this year for the first time since I rescued it. It's made of really colourful cardboard pieces that slot together and the figures have lovely smiley faces. I remember it fondly from childhood (DM was going to throw it out and I wouldn't let her but I've kept it in a box up to now)

OP we had those coloured lights with the petals around them when I was growing up too and honestly they gave off such a beautiful magical glow that I’ve never been able to recreate, I’ve tried with several sets of lights!

In honour of this thread, I’ve just ordered some coloured lights to go outside this year, usually it’s warm white (hate blue) but it’s been an awful year so need some cheering up, also ordered the large tinsel candy cane door wreath to keep it classy 😆

@Fizbosshoes

I saw some in my local post office the other day!

Most standalone post offices (ie not in Smith's or Rymans) seem to be stuck in a timewarp, in my experience. The ones you saw probably were from 1985!! I'm sure most of the birthday cards I've seen in the post office are, complete with dust.

🤣

I've just found some fabulous Christmas ornaments! This page and also if you click on menu, then Villages.....🥰

southwoodchristmasshop.co.uk/collections/lemax-villages-southwood-christmas-shop

We still have coloured lights - they are wonderful and make me feel all warm. Fairy lights make Christmas - and white ones and those LED ones just aren't right.
We have the whole late 20th century works though, at my mum's: coloured lights; tinsel; that silver stuff (just googled - apparently it's called 'lametta'); coloured baubles; glass baubles; baubles in various shapes (wooden trains, children, bells, Disneyworld 1993, stars - the works); foil streamers hanging from the ceilings; balloons; a one eyed snowman that I'm not sure what he's made of; a falling over cardboard santa and reindeer that was on the back of a selection box back in the 70s that my mum popped out and built up; some dangling foil decorations (a red and gold tree and ... something else which I've seen every year for 30 years and can't quite remember what it is); plastic mistletoe; and the same Christmas table cloth with holly berries on it that's wipeable not cloth and is made for a round table even though we've had a square one for ... ever.

I love it all and it wouldn't be Christmas without any of it. Christmas is no time to be tasteful.

We have half white, half coloured lights. They are the sets that click together so we bought one of each.
There is nothing coordinated about my Christmas tree and I love it! Those themed ones just remind me of golf clubs and cheap hotels.

The style police are very sniffy about coloured lights, but personally I couldn’t give a stuff about such people - I love them - but only the odd fashioned soft and twinkly ones. Managed to find some last year, hooray.

I did have some LED coloured ones but found them too harsh.

Same as last year, our tree will be dressed in the old fashioned coloured lights, plus a set of warm white LEDs.

Lacoste I remember driving up Oxford Street with my head sticking out of the sunroof, so I could see the decorations better. Late 70s iirc - not a seatbelt in sight!

Sorry, comment was to Laiste - I think my phone autocorrected for some reason

I have coloured lights on my tree. I can set them on different twinkling settings too.

I’ve been really desperate for a silver tinsel tree (to go with my multicoloured lights) for years as that’s what we had growing up and I loved it. I was so upset when my mum finally binned it and got a green tree instead. I hate the white lights (and the blue, but they don’t seem as common now).

I still have these kind from the 80s that were my Mums, although the bulbs go and are expensive to replace, and they get really warm (not sure they would pass any kind of regs these days). But I do love them and they'll always remind me of childhood Christmas.

We've still got 2 working sets of the older coloured lights people have been picturing above. Lovingly put away each year, then one set goes on the tree to supplement newer ones, and the other in our dining room.

I buy the old warm coloured bulb lights. You can get them on Amazon and some random smaller shops. I hate the modern LED coloured ones.