What Christmas Lights The QC Prefers: Multi-Color or White?

We put our Christmas lights up over the weekend in the Creighton household and I realized that for the past two or three years we've been all about the clear white lights. Clear white lights on the tree. Clear white lights around the window. Very different than what I grew up with. (Big, fat, old school colored lights that looked more or less like circus peanuts.) It got me curious about what lights people prefer to use in the Quad Cities and if there are any "rules" about what types of lights you should use.

I was amazed at the amount of articles this brought up about multi-color vs. white lights. Styleblueprint.com talked to a lot of interior designers, and right when I thought white lights was winning, designers talked about multi-colored lights. USA Today featured an article two years ago talking about people tweeting which lights were better. They consulted an HGTV entertaining and dining expert who admitted a love for multi-colored lights, but said it really was a personal preference type of thing. Heck the New York Times was even talking about this eight years ago.

There's a few themes I noticed in the articles: Couples squabbling about what type of lights to use might indicate other issues in the partnership relating to control. Someone with strong Christmas light preferences may have strong preferences in other areas of their life. People tend to gravitate to the Christmas light style they had growing up. Finally, kids tend to make moms and dads gravitate to multi-colored lights. Also, some people's tastes change over time.

The big fat old school circus peanut lights I grew up with. My Mom won that argument when she won the argument for a fresh cut tree in our home. Before that, we had all greenish/blue Italian Christmas lights. Then after I moved out my Dad persuaded my Mom to go back to Italian Christmas lights, but they were multi-colored.

Our first Christmas tree was a two foot tree with fiber optic lights that changed colors. Then we got a light purple tree with white lights. We've run the gamut of lights in the windows too. White lights, multi-colored lights, different styles over the years. Then a couple of years ago, when we got tired of the purple tree, we went traditional with a green tree and classy white lights. I'm sure in a few years we'll change it up again.

So do people in the Quad Cities love multi-colored lights, or clear white lights? According to my very unscientific Facebook query, multi-colored lights is clearly the winner. Of course, that could change after I post this blog. Here's what a few of our Facebook fans had to say about multi-colored lights:

Care to weigh in on the subject? Here's the Facebook post, feel free to comment!

The good news: It's just Christmas lights. When you get tired of one look, it's not that expensive to change it up and do something different. Now let me ask you this about Christmas lights: Always on, blinking or twinkling?