Christmas Poll
-
Friday, a couple days before Christmas, and hopefully most of you reading this aren't at work. Or it's not the Christmas weekend if you are 🙂
This week I was thinking and thinking and feeling a little stumped. I asked a friend, but decided to go against his suggestion of a favorite Christmas present for this one:
What's the most number of lights you've put on your house?
It can be past or present, and you can specify bulbs or strings.
For me, I'll start with three years ago, before we moved, and I went a little crazy buying lights, plus most of the strings worked. Since we've moved it seems that at least half my strings are half out and I haven't felt like digging through them all to replace bulbs.
That year I put up 7 strings of 150 across the front of the house (up and down) plus 3 strings in the Aspens to the side, each with 100. That's 1,350. I added 2 or 3 nets around the front shrubs, 150 each in those, plus some strings around the entrance. That's another 3 sets of 100. I had another large pine or spruce or some other evergreen on the South side of the house that got 5 strings of 100 wrapped around it.
Inside we decorated 1 string of 100 in each of my sons' rooms and two more in the foyer and on the stairs. That brings me to about 2,850-3,000, not exactly sure how many. My wife thought I'd have the brightest house on the block, but the neighbor on the end does a "Griswold" each year. He'd skipped the previous year, but he was back in force that year. I popped a breaker in my front yard and had to split the cords among two circuits. I think he uses 5.
Steve Jones
-
Friday 23rd 10a.m. (UK time) and most of us are at work because:
1. Cover is required
2. We've run out of holiday leave days
3. We haven't enough flexi time credit to take time off!!
so we're surfing the net etc. (work related sites only as others are blocked)
Personally I have zero Christmas lights outside my house and a couple of strings on the trees inside. I find so many of these "decorations" are really tacky - Homer Simpson Santas etc. and prefer a few simple lights in keeping with the rural neighbourhood.
There are many properties I've seen, both tasteful and really tacky but I always end up wondering how much electricity is being used solely by Christmas lights, both private and public?? I see my meter whizzing around - how do people afford all these lights?
When you add up the individual lights what would be the electricity useage per country and for the world? Are we making a major contribution to global warming and the running out of fossil fuels??
What does everyone else think?
-
Same as P. Jones, with not even a hint of a "bah, humbug". I think in our neighbourhood you'd stand out a bit, Steve, and not in a good way. Happy Christmas!
--
Scott -
Well I too am at work in the UK, Not that I do not have any holidays left or cover is required. I know where I would rather be and thats sat at home relaxing, but unfortunatley I will be here until 17:30, but I reckon most of the afternoon will be taken up surfing the web.
On the Lights thing I only really bother with lights on my Tree, and on the banister up the stairs, last year I did put some on my conifers outside the front door, but somebody decided to rip them off!! I personally think all those lights are OK if you have kids but otherwise they just look tacky, plus I just would not have the time or patience to put them all up then take them all down again after christmas.
Anyway seasons greetings to everyone, and have a good one!
Simon
-
Steve, you just continue to surprise us all.
Personally, there are nothing more than some lights inside, and that goes for more or less everyone in Sweden I guess.
Here is a video of someone who thinks differently (I guess this is a fake though, but you never know...):
-
I went somewhat nuts one year (though I can't say I compare to Steve). When I saw that my electric bill went up over $100 for that month, I decided that was the last time.
We live in a large, old farmhouse in a rural area about 50 miles north of Detroit. Candle lights in each window, a few strings on each of two trees, a string in garland up the bannister, a string in garland on top of the kitchen counter, and each kid (3 teenagers) has a string in their room to use as they wish. No outdoor lights of any kind.
We probably have more indoor lights than average for our area, but fewer outdoor lights.
-
I am only 21 so this year is the first year I am living away from my parents homes. Last two years I lived with my dad in detroit and we didnt decorate (didnt have time with school etc) and before that when I lived at home with my mom, we would decorate, but not that much (we would do modest white lights, and some coloured on the front of my house)... AHH yes the experience of freezing my rear off decorating the outside of the house durring a michigan thanksgiving holiday! In any event, this year there are no lights outside my apartment. We have a neighbor who has gone insane with the holiday decorations (which is odd to see since this is my first year in Florida as well for christmas) I will try to send a picture of his house on another reply.
Since this is my first year alone, my fiance and I have decided to do a holiday palm tree this year (in the spirit of a florida christmas). It is a modest tree with a 100 light string on it. We have some icicles (fake ones of course) on the tree as well as some holiday decorations and some tinsil. She is going to send me a picture (I am at work as well, my company is giving us only monday off, and I am here until at least 1530, though I may stay a little latter to do some work on my servers while others are away). In any event I dont buy into the whole santa claus bull that seems to run rampant in this country, and thus the decorations this year have been sparse (another reason we don't have an evergreen is that I didn't want to do a holiday exactly like everyone else does.... THINK DIFFERENT !).
In any event I hope everyone has a happy Christmas, happy Chanukah, happy Kwanza, or whatever holiday you are celibrating this time of year. If you aren't celbrating a holiday then I say to you happy day off. If you don't get a day off, then I guess I will just say have a good day
Regards,
Alexandros "Aleksei" Nipirakis
-
At work in Canada! but only a half day
then I get to shuffle through the stores for a last minute prezzy or two 
Only 5 light sets here, but thats a record because I usually procrastinate until it is too late
I live across the river from the city's own light display so its all I need anyway 
Thanks SQLserverCentral for this great site, I'll miss it over the holiday's... Have a great holidays and happy new year!
-
Following on Chris Hedgate's post, you can also find the same video here.
This is a house in Mason, OH (Suburb of Cincy). The soundtrack plays over the radio so the neighbors aren't disturbed and it runs from dusk till 10P at night. He was still forced to shut it down because the display was so clogging the road, that nobody could get through.
Said it only upped his electric bill $300-$400.
I don't have any lights up.
----------------
Jim P.A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.
-
Hi All,
I live in a suburb of Boston and yes sometimes it is tacky with the lights but i've come to the conclusion that it is part of the "FUN"!
I waited too late this year so I only got about 20 sets of lights up around the front of house and bushes. The roof was iced up so I didn't want to pull a"Griswold" and fall of so I gave up going all the way around. In the house we probably have half as many lights; around the tree, fireplace mantle, living room entrance etc.. Even though the kids are grown (college & high school) the lights are still expected!!
No, I don't look to closely at electric bill this time of year. I made that mistake once!! (My wife blames the electric range!!)
Best wishes to all!
Mike
-
Am I the only one with kids here? I thought I'd be low man on the totem pole with this one!
I tend to agree that I rarely decorated anything until I had kids, then once they hit 4-5, everything broke loose. Next year I may be able to put up my windmill and then run all the lights I want
-
Christmas Lights - as a child my folks put out a single string around the front window of the house and filled the tree inside with lights. Now since my wife and I have no kids we only have lights on the tree. I hang about 1400 lights on a seven and a half foot tree each year and that seems to be eonugh.
Today at work - My team is here this morning, three will leave at noon and two will stay. It is quiet and probably will stay that way. We have a meeting of the team this morning to discuss some data security issues and the path forward for early next year. I had hesitated calling a meeting during the holidays but we are here and need to be attending to business.
Happy holidays to all who read this and to all of theirs.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
-
I usually just do an indoor tree with anywhere from 300 to 500 lights on it. All I can say is that those people who put thousands of lights up must make energy company stockholders gibber with delight.
-
On the day after Thanksgiving, all Christmas breaks out at our house.
I have three little boys, and my wife is absolutely nuts for ornaments, lights, stockings, wreaths, ribbons, etc. So while I was making turkey soup on Friday, they had broken out all the hardware. It was 60 degF and sunny that weekend (Sacramento, California) so I got to scale a ladder and put a few strings of lights outside (and I'm Jewish!). Our pre-lit artificial tree indoors has 900 lights. When we bought it, I pointed out to my sweetie that the tag says it is "fire-resistant" not fireproof. Plus, my one-and-only is determined that Christmas is a failure if, within a six foot radius of the tree, you can see the floor between the presents.
I find myself saying, over and over, "Anything for you, babe".
There is no "i" in team, but idiot has two. -
Looks like no one here quite did this:
http://members.cox.net/transam57/lights.wmv
turn up your speakers
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply