Here we go folks, a blog post from experience. Lots and lots of experience. I am talking, expert levels of experience.. in doing Christmas lights all wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, I go all out for the holidays. Massive levels of holiday cheer, here. But I am also disorganized, impatient and a HUGE procrastinator. And as such, I have pretty much mastered the art of What Not To Do When Hanging Up Christmas Lights. Check out my sage and tried and true advice below!
Don’t Wait Till A Week or Two Before Christmas to Hang the Lights
One of my biggest pet peeves – and I mean BIGGEST – are houses decorated for Christmas before Thanksgiving or after New Years Day. Seriously, any Christmas décor prior to or after these dates should be a hanging offence. (I would be a fair and just ruler. The peasants shall rejoice with me in charge.)
So with such a slim window for Christmas lights, it only makes sense to, ya know, NOT wait till the very last minute to decorate for the season. Hours and hours of work on the house, just to take it down a few weeks later? LAME!
We did this last year. I vowed we would not do this again this year. Did I succeed? Well, no. But its only two weeks and two days till Christmas, so technically I *have* improved. At this rate we will have a timely decorated house by the time I am 50.
Don’t Store Christmas Lights by Wadding Them Up and Throwing Them in Storage
This has been me. Every year. It drives my husband nuts and I don’t blame him one bit. It drives ME nuts! But I have to keep doing it now because, well, tradition.
See this photo? This is an actual Christmas storage bin filled with actual Christmas décor and lights, as it was when I opened it. Aint it lovely?
So this. Don’t do it. Just don’t. It takes five annoying minutes to wind up this little boogers post-holidays, but it beats the 30 plus minute it takes to untangle them when you are belatedly decorating your house two weeks before Christmas..
Don’t Hang Up Lights Without a Plan
So I had this awesome plan to hang those pretty icicle strands of twinkle lights all along the branches of a very tall tree, that none of our ladders really reached up to. So I had the husband (bless his patient heart) shimmy up our ladder, up onto the roof, and then up even higher onto a limb on the tree that barely reached the branches I wanted decorated. Oh, and did I mention he has a healthy fear of heights??
So there he is, precariously perched on a limb on the tree, and then I advised the husband to decorate the limbs, or something. Any way he could. No real plan in mind. So the decorations pretty much consisted of throwing strands of tangles icicle twinkle lights all of the place. A couple hours, and a blob of twinkly lights later, and we decided the lights need to come down because.. well, it was ugly as butt.
So before you risk falling off a house for some Christmas cheer, be sure you know what you want, where you want it, how its going to get (and stay there) and all that jazz.
I used to have the whole house decorated within the weekend after Thanksgiving. The last two years I’ve really fallen behind. BUT I have always kept my stuff up till Jan. 6th…that’s 12th Night. So…if/when I do get around to decorating, I’ve got a few more days to enjoy!
My goal for the past two years has been to decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving.. but man is it impossible these days!!
There might be a reason, where I as your husband, simply say, “Nope. Hire it done.” I’m just sayin’. We do lights on the tree but not outside. Indiana. January take down. Freeze my butt and you-know-what off? Nope ain’t going to happen.
I am seriously looking into buying those laser projector lights.. the thought of plugging in a light and being good to go sounds soooo nice…
I think we all learn these lessons the hard way. I’ve definitely hung up lights without checking the strand — ARGH!!!! My husband and I joke that it might just be better to get new lights each year. Except for that pesky budget issue:)
Haha, hubby and I have had this discussion ourselves!!
Such a lovely Christmas post with handy tips, dear! I usually hang mine a month before. Err….. too early perhaps?? Hahaha! xoxo
Eh, Ill give you a pass because youre sweet, hehe..
Hi Gingi! This post just got me laughing ~ I mostly agree with you. I’m a total light freak so I’m never happy unless I have a gizzillion lights on my tree, I mean, like 20 strands! Having said that, I am able to fully support those who keep Christmas decor up to the end of January. That’s January, not July!
Id probably be less stressed out if I lightened up on my strict Christmas lights timeline, haha..
Hahaha! So we checked and double checked out lights this year, only to put them on a cactus and have them not work! You just can’t make this stuff up….
A cactus.. but.. ummm…. whyyyyy?? lol!!
Great post and too funny! Our tree is always weighed down with too many lights!
Thats usually us! We put just ONE strand on the tree this year because I expect it wont last long with cats and toddlers.. haha..
I totally love the holidays but I never decorate with lights other than on the tree… lol… I am afraid of heights too. When I started decorating the tree this year, I realized I hadn’t checked the lights first, thankfully they all worked… that would have ticked me off royally if they weren’t… anyhow, I am learning lessons as I go, even putting those lights away correctly, it only took me many years to learn… haha 🙂 xox
Yeah, we felt SO defeated when we saw the lights werent working!! Soooooo disheartening after all the hard work!!
It’s not very common in Estonia to decorate your entire house with lights etc for Christmas. Some people do it, but not very many. We do get city sponsored lights on most main streets and in the old town though.
I quite like Christmas lights and my mom always put some on our house in winter (well she still does), but now I live in an apartment building and that doesn’t get decorated. I do however have a set of Christmas lights decorating my kitchen and my living room window all year round 😛 People think I’m odd for it, but I simply love the colour and warmth it gives my apartment 🙂
I just told my husband that I want to keep the twinkle lights up outside of our kitchen window because I LOVE seeing the twinkly lights when I get up early in the morning to make my coffee! hehe!
i absolutely love this 🙂 i hope you’ll have an amazing day!
mfashionfreak♥blog
You too dear!! <3
Haha such an amazing post! And beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing these tips!
xx
cvetybaby.com
<3
Totally cheated this year and got laser Christmas lights, ha ha.
I want to get laser lights sooooo bad!!!!! What brand did you get? Do they work okay??
I’m can’t find the box, so I’m not sure of the brand, but we got them at Home Depot. We have two outside the house, but I think we need one more. They do look really cool 🙂
LOL I hope you got your decorations up eventually. It sounds really stressful!
STILL working on it as of today! haha
Great tips. Thankfully we have a garage but no car so our ‘tree’ gets stored with the lights still on it though we do take the decorations off.
Thats brilliant!!!
That is one awesome post! I heard so many stories about accidents happening just because people didn’t know how to hang up Christmas light properly!
Yeah.. that might just be me in a couple of minutes.. gonna try to take down some fail lights in a bit, haha…
Sweet, sweet photos of your precious little ones, friend! And I’m loving 2 pre-lit trees … and NO MORE ENDLESS STRANDS OF LIGHTS!
Merry Christmas!
Awww, thank you! I am so in love with these photos, I took sooooo many of them playing with the lights!
nice tips girl <3
haha, we only do them inside because no one sees our house anyway but Cassidy will agree there’s a science to it. We usually do it a day or two after Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day or so.
See? You got the timeline down! You can stay…
Such a lovely post – and your girls are gorgeous.
All the best Jan
Awwww, thank you Jan! <3