How do I start to explain to DS that we are NOT having lights on the front of the house because it is very bad taste?

[PeaMcLean]

He's asked three times already.

Be grateful. When my Grandpa married his new wife he went from one tastefully decorated small real tree to 3 foot flashing snowmen holding signs "Santa Stop Here!!!" festooning the front garden.

My father nearly wept with mirth.

smugcolditz Rofl - my parents would have fainted away with the horror

I like outdoor lights. But only in trees. My parents have some little white lights all over the trees outside their house. V pretty.

peachy - I suspect that faced with a loads of lovely bright lights your DH might start pulling on a costume and dancing?

oh no...it's fun...we put them on a tree in our frount garden..and lots around the outside of the house....come on..kids love them!

We have a tasteful string of plain white lights and some plain blue ones.

Part of our Christmas tradition is to drive round a particular road round the back from us to look at the life sized topiary reindeer which move and are covered n tiny fairy lights. Tacky but oh so lovely

I've just remembered the snowflake of lights and some others I may have bought in Ikea a few week ago and hidden.

Pea - could you take him to look at the pretty lights on the house at the end of North Road (near Gabalfa roundabout)? I reckon that's why they put the speed camera there!!

Hi mogs, I fear that will only give him ideas. It's that kind of thing that set him off in the first place! Granny lives in Rhondda you see

Christmas is for children.

Get over yourself.

Do you care more about other people's opinions or seeing your child's face light up along with the lights

Yes, without Christmas lights on the outside the poor wee lad will be completely deprived.

It's amazing that you haven't been flamed yet for saying that lights on the front of the house are "very bad taste"!!

Bound to offend someone on here - must be a quiet night...

Shame you didn't post it on a Friday night (Fight night) for dramatic effect. I might resurrect it come Friday just to see what happens

Oh and - what is there to explain to DS? Why aren't you just saying that you won't be having lights on the front of the house as it's very bad taste? Is it because you is slightly ashamed of your snobbery and worried that it will reflect on DS when he describes his friends as having bad taste for their lights?

Why is it bad taste, xmas is for children, children love to see loads of lights at christmas.

we live on the outskirts of a very affluent area, the cheapest housse are probably worth around a million, you know what they have lights on the outside too.

I do my house up so you can't see a brick in sight and it's so bright you can see it from 2 blocks away, and you know what I don't give a shit because it makes my day when the kids see it and they smile the biggest smile.
Adults bring them fro all over. They know it makes the kids day.

Its about the kids you know.

....tell him that you will put them up.

But only if you can purchase them from Waitrose...

I'd say no because I lack the skill to get the buggers up there, but I really wouldn't give a flying stuff about "being common".

Now he's old enough I'm also going to stop being anal about the tree decorations matching and just let him put whatever he wants on it.

Wanting everything just so and having children are not really compatible.

I love outside lights. But tasteful ones! There is a house near us here in Budapest and they just have one tree in the centre of their garden lit with coloured lights. I love it. It reminds of Xmas when I was a child for some reason. (Poss because I only do white lights on my tree these days and it's not quite the same but I am not admitting it as white is more tasteful!)

You could always get the lights from John Lewis is that was less offensive to your refined taste

Basically I would worry about myself if other people's opinions were that important to me.

In fact, if I thought my neighbours would disapprove, I reckon I'd get even more lights

Simply explain to him that such lights are FRIGHTFULLY plebby, darling.

god oyu are a pompous twat liek hyascinth bouquet arent you

wil your kid say" oh my mum was tasteful when you die or oh my mum was fun"

I have very tasteful outdoor lights that just go above my porch and are clear.

So there.

Have you got the sign that goes with them to say: 'We may have outdoor lights but we're not common, old boy'

wtf is 'common' about having o/s lights. Sprerad a little joy into the lives of your poor dperived children

We don't have them but only because neither of us is up to the job.

One house we know used to have a flashing Santa + sleigh on the roof (the lights flashing you understand) until the year the bloke fell off while putting it up. He survived but doesn't do it any more

Ooh Friday has started!

I need to make one point clear, I never said "common". That has a very different meaning and would, I think, be quite rude.

LOL at you all thinking my child never has fun with me just because I don't like fairy lights.

C'mon, show me some of your "tasteful lights", you may sway me.

(God I really should stop bumping this thread....)