Do you leave your Christmas lights up year round?

[az4code23]

Just another curious thread. How many of you leave your Christmas lights up on your house year round? I do. They haven't come down in the last 10 years. Anyone else?

[Steelers5]

The bigger question is. Do you leave them on

I do leave them up. Live in the northeast and change few bulbs.

[orlandofed5-0]

No. Iam jewish. I also do not leave the menorah up year round.

[ateamer]

I did for a couple years. Our house is a real pain to put up or remove lights, so I just left them up. One afternoon my trainee saw the lights and commented on how trashy it was to leave the lights up year 'round. I told her it was my house. She looked at me and said, "well, take the lights down - it looks trashy." (She was a lateral from within the county and more of a partner than trainee, so she was well within bounds saying it.)

I finally took the lights down and threw them in the trash - too much bother every year.

[RR_Security]

Most years, July 2nd is "the exact middle day of the year." (182 days past, 182 days ahead for the year.) That's the day I consider our Christmas lights have gone from "being up late" to "being up early."

Actually, they're just a PITA to take down and put back up, so I've left them up. I don't think we've plugged 'em in for at least two years now. The OL used to like doing decorations, but I don't think she'd get on a ladder to escape a burning building, so guess who had to climb up and string the "icicle" lights along the eaves almost nine years ago. At least we never got to the Lighted, Animated Santa and Reindeer Chorus Line on-the-roof-peak stage.

[Monkeybomb]

Stopped putting them up. Its hard enough to find time to put them up much less take them down in the snow and ice. But my wife has at least two christmas trees the go up right after turkey day and come down sometime in January.

The interior of the house looks like Santa puked.

[Kieth M.]

Back in CA, the lights went up the day after Turkey Day and were removed the first week of January.

After our relocation to CO my wife, Mrs. M. the Christmas addict, insisted the same protocol be followed...now on a two story house where I can crawl out the loft window and actually place my over 50 lower limbs on a 45 degree while holding a string of lights in my teeth and as Monkeybomb says, it's cold, or there's snow here. My hands are always freezing. I'm using words my children, let alone the neighbors, shouldn't hear coming from the usually mild-mannered Kieth M.

I have created some handy tools to help get the job done, but (mark my words) it's going to lead to a serious injury for me, probably, one day.

At the same time, there are companies here on the front range who will put up their lights on your home using scissor lifts and scaffolds, but we're not shelling out 500-1000, or so, bucks for that service.
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You remind me of another Christmas story, though. When we lived in Arcadia (CA) I would drive down Duarte Road past a complex of ground floor duplex-type apartments. I watched one Christmas tree remain up, die, and shed needles inside one of those apartments until the following August!

[Smurfette_76]

I like Christmas. I do NOT like looking like Santa done sh*t all over my house (inside or out). Lights are pretty, but I'm not the one climbing on my ladder to put them up. I have NEVER told my husband to put them up. I never will.

[mikeymedic]

If it wasn't for a dam HOA I would love to have lights up all year round....cause I'm lazy.

[Southflaguy]

We did once, but afte a while the houses looked tacky...If a hurricane comes by we would have to take it down, putting up the shutters is a PITA itself...

[913]

Kind of white trash. Reminds me of Randy Quaid in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Something he would do, if he had a house.

[lpstopper]

We used to leave em up for a few months after xmas.

[Jere]

There is a house on the way to my parent's that leaves the tree in the window and lit until Easter. It is put up the day after Halloween. The outside decorations stay up there. I myself haven't decorated for Christmas in years. I always work Christmas and I live by myself.

[99 Fenix]

"cuz im a redneck woman, i aint no high class broad..."

[Sheepdog110]

My three foot high synthetic Christmas tree has been sitting on top of my broken air hockey table for about three years. That is the only Christmas decoration I own and I'm quite happy about that. No, the lights have never been plugged in and I like it that way.

On a side note, Christmas is overrated. It has lost the meaning that it once had and quite frankly it sickens me. I like to pray on Christmas instead of blowing a ton of cash on crap that people probably don't want anyway.

Yep, I'm a grinch.