I am bummed that my neighborhood has so little Christmas flair.

[Anonymous]

I live in a pocket of NW DC that has markedly fewer homes decorated with lights than the neighborhoods 1/2 mile to the north and west. My street in particular is a dead zone.

There are some very concrete reasons as to why this is, and I'm not arguing that the demographics of our little area should be otherwise. But still, at this time of year I can't help but being anonymously wistful. Now I'm going to snap out of it and do something meaningful for someone else.

[Anonymous]

Hmm. As a Jewish mom I'm deciding to ignore the "demographics" thing.

Are you in a historic district that restricts... er... electrical or plastic expressions of Christmas flair?

I don't know what my own historic district's rules are, but we normally don't have homes bedecked with colorful lights. One of the rowhouses has an extraordinary tangle this year, though. I don't have strong feelings one way or the other, though I find it just a little tacky. Maybe tacky but fun-- not sure, actually.

I enjoy seeing green garlands and candles in windows, though.

[Anonymous]

Mine is the same way! I love my neighborhood, which is a wonderful mix of ethnicities and nationalities, and I feel I fit right in because our family is mixed nationality and religion. But almost nobody but me is Christian. So no decorations other my mine. I get a little wistful, but that's about it.

[Anonymous]

Plenty of Christians on my block. Very few decorations. Maybe you need to look past "demographic" and look at "motivation."

[Anonymous]

OP, what are the "demographics" of said neighborhood?

[Anonymous]

The demographics include several groups that don't decorate, for different reasons. Lots of people who are 70+ years old (so are not so inclined to climb on ladders, plus their kids don't believe in Santa because they're 50, not 5). Also several rental homes occupied by World Bank and embassy types who are not Christian and/or are transient. Lots of homeowners who are Jewish, yes, but I can also think of friends/neighbors who are Muslim and atheist and in one case, Wiccan.

So I promise, this wasn't a knock a particular religion. It's a convergence of factors! that combine to keep the surrounding 3 blocks relatively dark compared to the neighborhoods immediately to the north and west. Oh, and east.

[Anonymous]

i find the entire city to be lacking in xms flair, compared to Boston, where I grew up. Boston is covered in lights and decorations--homes and businesses alike. here, not so much!

[Anonymous]

OP, look at the bright side. When it's early March and some of those stragglers with "flair" still haven't taken down all their, um, decorations, it won't be on your block!

[Anonymous]

I hear you OP. My neighborhood has a few elderly and renters and one family that used to decorate elaboratly stopped altogethor (I think their kids went to college and they called it quits). My son looks at our dark street and asks why aren't people putting out their Christmas lights?

I find I add more lights or decorations every year to make up for the lack elsewhere. If I keep going, soon I'm going to be that crazy house on the block. I mean - never in a million years would I have thought I'd have an inflatable snowman on my yard

[Anonymous]

I think Christmas has snuck up on people this year, too. It seemed too early to put up lights in the days after Thanksgiving, but then we panicked this past weekend, knowing that if we didn't get the lights up on Saturday, we'd lose Sunday to the rain and then have to deal with the returning Arctic chill. All to say that maybe some lights are still to come.

[Anonymous]

We've had our boxes of outdoor lights sitting in the basement since...December 1st, when we did our indoor decorating. We keep meaning to put up the lights outside, and we keep getting busy and forgetting. Maybe others in your neighborhood are in this same boat? Maybe we'll all get it together enough to put the lights up this weekend.

[Anonymous]

I finally got to it this weekend!!!

I'm not usually a holiday decorator, but Christmas does get the best (or worst) of me, I admit, even though there's little religious meaning I derive from it. Perhaps sensing my itch to deck the halls, about a decade ago my former non-Christmas celebrating grad school roommate asked me a-priori to keep things to a minimum... so we compromised and hung as many non-denominational winter-appropriate pretty natural kinds of things as she could stand. We had a great time!

I like lights, too... just reminds me of being excited as a kid, the say way that "snow days" resurrect the thrill of listening to announcements of school being canceled.

Just a habit, really, but it definitely evokes a visceral response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i find the entire city to be lacking in xms flair, compared to Boston, where I grew up. Boston is covered in lights and decorations--homes and businesses alike. here, not so much!

We moved here over the Summer and I agree the city (and our suburb) in particular is lacking the typical lights and decorations that we were accustomed too. Most recently we came from the north central part of the US, where it is much colder and still there were more lights. The kids wanted to go look at lights over the weekend (holiday tradition) and we really didn't see any neighborhoods that were all lit up; - just a house here and there.

Are there any specific neighborhoods or cities in which everyone has lights on? One neighborhood of our previous city had a street called "Candy Cane Lane" - about 98% of the the houses were lit up. Anything like that around DC/MD/VA?

[Anonymous]

The only street I know about like that is in the middle of Baltimore, in Hampden.

http://baltimore.about.com/od/livinginbaltimore/ig/Hampden-Christmas-Lights/

It's worth the drive, though.

[Anonymous]

Also live in the suburbs and there are enough houses decorated to make me not feel wistful...but they are so [i]tastefully[/i[ done. House after house of white lights. Tasteful, classy white lights. Garland wrapped around their porch.

Where are my gaudy color lights, people? Why can't the Griswolds or a whole block of Griswolds live in my neighborhood during Christmas???