<p>We’ve had too much snow to take the (formerly live) Christmas tree out of the house. The decor is off it – has been since Twelfth Night – but the tree was waiting for the snow canyons to vanish. They’re gone now … so maybe this weekend.</p>
<p>H put two winding strands of lights up one of the columns on our front porch: one green, one red. They are still there. On the other hand, they look kind of cool and not particularly Christmassy. It’s his job to remove them, not mine. </p>
<p>At least this year we are not going to have a wreath up until the birds build a nest in it. :D</p>
<p>When I was growing up, we would turn on the Christmas lights under the eaves to guide the pizza delivery to our house. No, not deep dish.</p>
<p>Our tradition is we stop turning the lights on Jan 6 (Epiphany). Despite the snow from the Dec 26 blizzard, was relatively mild on Jan 8 and we took down our lights & evergreen swags. We had neighbors that were just taking down decoration last weekend and there are a few that still have them up. I find the obvious decorations annoying, as it is March and Lent starts tomorrow!</p>
<p>We have LED xmas lights on our front porch all year round. They had a lovely twinkly welcome, and much needed light. Not gonna take 'em down… tough if you don’t like them!;)</p>
<p>It may be different if you can’t see the lights, but they are called Christmas lights for a reason and the ones that annoy me are the icicle lights and the ones that are obvious.</p>
<p>I have always thought it was a redneck thing to leave them up, or just lazy.</p>
<p>Wish our neighbor would take the Santa sleigh off their roof.</p>
<p>We have an ever efficient homeowners association that will send us a reminder to take decorations down by a certain date. Complete with pictures, btw.</p>
<p>“Wish our neighbor would take the Santa sleigh off their roof.”</p>
<p>Just another example why CC needs a LIKE button!</p>
<p>Our neighbor is in the third year of a massive construction project, complete with an outhouse and construction trailer. I would so much rather look at twinkly lights!</p>
<p>My H tells a funny story about growing up. His dad never got around to taking the lights down. One year, while up at the lake over the July 4th holiday, someone plugged in the all the lights. They arrived home to a fully-lit house. From that point on, they took the lights down in a timely manner.</p>
<p>We also take the lights down after Jan. 6th. This year, my husband put rope lights on the screened enclosure around the pool and I will not let him take them down. I love the way they look and they provide just the right amount of light. Although the lights are in full view of my neighbors, nobody has complained.</p>
<p>No Santa/reindeer after Feb 2.</p>
<pre><code>No icicle lights left on all year.
Simple LED lights under eaves, OK.
</code></pre>
<p>Our next door neighbor starts with Halloween decorations on October 1, segues into Christmas on November 1, then sometime in January switches to Valentine’s Day. Everything comes down in mid-February. He has a very eclectic selection ranging from the older choir boys to the new inflatable snowmen to his growing collection of zoo animal lawn ornaments (love his zebra). Two decorations stayed up through the entire process - a tree wrapped with orangy-red and white lights, and a scarecrow that switched from a pumpkin to a snowman head. When the head switched over on November 1, I claimed it was a Day-of-the-Dead decoration since it did somewhat look like a skeleton at that point. </p>
<p>I put up little white lights inside the loft just before Chanukah starts (it is the Festival of Lights, after all) and take them down after New Year’s. Most of the bigger houses in our neighborhood use services so everything is taken down by early January.</p>
<p>We have two houses on our street that keep the lights up and mostly on year-round. Since this is a shore town with many many empty houses on the street outside the summer season, I like being reminded that there are a few others living here. It makes it a little less desolate. My own lights come down in mid-January.</p>
<p>Alright - I am on my way to get my ashes, so I just took my Christmas wreath down. It REALLY does still look nice. My front door now looks bare.</p>
<p>Well, looks like there are many practices out there, but I gotta say that if your neighbors are Italian they have an inalienable right to keep 'em up and on all year 'round.</p>
<p>And, boy, do they use it!!</p>