Grandiose Spending

Before we moved last year we did pay for lights for our one store house. They did the front of our house, the two columns by the door and wrapped the trunks of I think 4 trees in the front yard. We were paying in the $500 to $600 range. The last year the owner had sold out and it was a little more which I thought was too high. We moved last year and didn't find anyone in time for Christmas and I missed having them. I like the look and felt the lights were festive. This reminds me I need to find a service for this year.

Anyway - $500 to $600 seems about right. I wouldn't do it myself or have DH do it since I don't think we need to be on ladders.
 
Our display is small and very simple.

I explained to DW that I did not want to take away from any of our neighbours efforts by trying to compete with them or indeed keep up with them. It is my story and I am sticking to it.

It is already bad enough. Our neighbours all drive late model Lexus, Merc or those large expensive SUV's. Our Accord is 13 years old and still running like a top.
 
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brett said:
Our display is small and very simple.

I explained to DW that I did not want to take away from any of our neighbours efforts by trying to compete with them or indeed keep up with them. It is my story and I am sticking to it.
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Us, too. One electric candle in each street side window. But we are thinking of cutting back.
 
I just see a poll on the Web, whose result indicates that 24% of 280,000 respondents say they do no Christmas decorations.
 
Since retirement 5 years ago, we have put out a 12 piece all white nativity scene with three blue spot lights. The figures are 39" tall, and I also rigged up a LED spotlight that shine straight up into the air, giving the impression that the light is coming from above. All sitting in my homemade stable, that doubles as part of my garden fence the rest of the year. We store the figures in the basement of one of our rentals. Takes about 4 hours to transport figures and build, nice to know I'm making $300/hour non taxable. It will have paid for itself in 10 years.
 
I wish some of you posted your Christmas decoration photos.
 
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REWahoo said:
OK, here's mine...
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:LOL:
That's still more than we do! We don't really celebrate any religious holidays, but my in-laws do, so we go to their house for a present exchange and big dinner. It's also just a nice time to spend a couple of days visiting family.
One thing I sometimes still do is visit the tree lots and offer them $5-10 for the trimmings off the bottom of a few trees. I find a few straight ones (not cut on a bias), and put the freshly cut end facing up, put a tea light or votive on top of that (usually a real one, but sometimes electric), and the house smells like pine for weeks, and it looks nice, too!
 
We had a massive inflatable penguin for outdoors when the kids were young...gave it away a few years ago to a couple with young kids.
 
My wife doesn't make me do lights anymore since my BIL died when he fell off his roof while trying to take Christmas lights down.
 
The Cosmic Avenger said:
REWahoo said:
OK, here's mine...
Click to expand...
:LOL:
That's still more than we do!
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Us too! :2funny:
We are both agnostic, so the holidays have no religious significance to us. Consequently we just don't "do Christmas". We stop by to see his relatives on that day, briefly, and give/send gift cards to his relatives and my daughter, but that is really all.

No decorations for the past quarter century.
 
We will spent about $100, drive to Hatch New Mexico, have lunch and buy a fresh chili ristras to hang on the porch. Merry Christmas.
 
During the halcyon days of the dot com boom, BIL bragged about spending $3k on this service for their 5k sq. ft. house and multi-acre lot.

After he got fired, he does his own. All on the ground (no ladders).

We do do our own ground based lights on the bushes. For the last few years, I put up a large home made ornament ball in the tree by throwing a line up over a high branch and hoisting it up along with the extension cord. A neighbor does this with a string of "ornaments". He uses a sling shot to throw the line way the heck up there.
 
JoeWras said:
During the halcyon days of the dot com boom, BIL bragged about spending $3k on this service for their 5k sq. ft. house and multi-acre lot.

After he got fired, he does his own. All on the ground (no ladders)...
Click to expand...

I can tell the state of the economy and of the stock market by looking at the level of Halloween and Christmas decorations around my hood. I still remember the days of the Great Recession with the housing bust. The mood was sad and dark.

So, let there be merry and colorful lights and decorations. I don't put up any myself, but I prefer to see people happy than sad.
 
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NW-Bound said:
I can tell the state of the economy and of the stock market by looking at the level of Halloween and Christmas decorations around my hood. I still remember the days of the Great Recession with the housing bust. The mood was sad and dark.

So, let there be merry and colorful lights and decorations. I don't put up any myself, but I prefer to see people happy than sad.
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I think this is generally true, though I remember the Christmas after 9-11 there were way more decorations than usual in my town. Not sure if this was a nation-wide trend though.
 
Yes, that service has a great profit margin for the person who wants to hustle.

At one house that was tall, I created a star out of wood. Then we attached the ends of several light strings to the back. Then we went to a second story window and hung the star outside from the top and then anchored each of those light strings to the ground below. Took about 20 minutes and always got great comments.
 
ExFlyBoy5 said:
DW and I were out in the yard this weekend raking leaves. It's a task I deplore and it's been taking a LOT of time the last few weeks, but we deal with it.

Midway thought the task, my neighbor came over to ask our plans for Christmas lights. I could spend a good 9 paragraphs telling all of you about this neighbor, but I will save you the time. He's interesting...let's keep it at that. :D

It really seemed to me that he was wanting assurance that we would "keep" with the neighborhood tradition and not have anything tacky in the yard. Mind you, we are in a fairly nice neighborhood and the homes are well taken care of...I get his concern. DW told him that we needed to do some measuring and outlined our fairly basic plan. He then went on to tell us that they know of a fantastic service that will come and install/remove your lights and ever store them! Sounds nice to me...so how much? Well, apparently this service *starts* in the $1200-1500 range! What the?!? And to my amazement, when decorations were coming down in January, it looked like the 3 houses that are around us all use this service!!

Now, I am not here to judge, but I cannot fathom spending that kind of dough on a service that takes DW and I about 8 hours to do. Grandiose spending in my opinion. I guess same vein as "BLOW THAT DOUGH" but just an observation I made.

I think I might set up something like this...just for the neighbor.
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Joy isn’t cheap these days.

Do you ever experience joy?

Merrrrrry Christmas. Cup cakes 👍🤗🥮🇨🇮
 
I used to really decorate but I started cutting back and giving my excess away . We now do a tree , lights on our deck and a few wreaths.
 
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