Outdoor decorations

[plaidmom]

For those who love gaudy and over-the-top, you have *got* to make it to
37th Street in Austin, Texas sometime

[gingerbreadlady]

Come on people...its christmas..i love driving around and seeing the amazing decorations people do. Don't be so boring in your life and break out of the blahhhhhh! I make my house into a lifesize gingerbread house and i have people go crazy over how amazing it looks.. One lady said she comes by my house every year with her kids. Someone this year even left me large gingerbread people with a note that says "i think we belong here". now that is the spirt of christmas! Actually made me cry!

[Bluesmama]

I don't believe I have ever seen a Christmas-decorated house that makes me cringe. I'd rather look at bright tackiness than none at all. And I've seen some nice displays using inflatables.

We don't decorate outside at all (our big spread is for Halloween).

[1greatcity]

Originally Posted by gingerbreadlady

Come on people...its christmas..i love driving around and seeing the amazing decorations people do. Don't be so boring in your life and break out of the blahhhhhh! I make my house into a lifesize gingerbread house and i have people go crazy over how amazing it looks.. One lady said she comes by my house every year with her kids. Someone this year even left me large gingerbread people with a note that says "i think we belong here". now that is the spirt of christmas! Actually made me cry!

We're really big on decorating themes at Christmas time. "Gingerbread" was this year's theme at our house too! For the yard, we built a 7-foot tall gingerbread house covered in candy, a pair of 4-ft gingerbread people (and their little dog too!), one lollipop that's 42" across and three smaller lollipops, a pair of giant Hershey Kisses, etc. People love to drive by and stop to have a look. Inside, our Christmas tree is totally decorated in the gingerbread theme, with all sorts of candy and gingerbread lights and ornaments. There's also a separate candy cane tree, a 5-ft tall inflatable gingerbread boy, and a big bowlful of oversize candy. It's not really "over-the-top", but it gets your attention and it's fun to look at.

[pamelaBeurman]

If done tastefully, it's not too bad. When they deflate and just lay in the yard (or hang around in trees) that's tacky.

When our kids were little it was a Christmas eve tradition to load up the kids in the stationwagon and drive around town looking at the lights. Some were good, some bad. It didn't matter though, the kids loved all of it and that's what was important.