It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas Off Topic Chat

BK5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121982045#Comment_121982045

Yes, it's open all year and it's a treat to go round, it's huge. I wish they would have a sale though.

Cork Lass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981891#Comment_121981891

Some of our neighbors have the multi coloured clusters and they are really nice but it’s warm white all the way in our house, the thought of changing would bring me out in a sweat 😥.

DvB

All white in ours too... not a chance will the .rs change either. Anyway, given the amount of lights we have it would cost a fortune to change now so no ta!! 🤣

jellybear

I'd also vote for warm white...make a house look so cosy and warm!

SCOOP 64

We Changed From multicoloured to warm whites , cutters and 4 trees at front, find the clusters are shorter then standard lights you have to check length on box, we needed a good length on cutters so went for standard.

A cup of te

Ah, I've got to visit this M50 Christmas shop. It says it's closed at the weekend. May wait till I've a day off! Can't wait!

jellybear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121983820#Comment_121983820

They're definitely open weekends 🙂

Saturday 9.30am-5pm

Sunday 11am-5pm

CheerLouth

We are a multicoloured lights house! Go multicoloured @BK5. You won't be sorry!

Loughc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121983611#Comment_121983611

warm white for me too.

A multicoloured lights out the back on the shed.

BK5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121985619#Comment_121985619

That final decision will be up to the Boss (wife) ha ha

Loughc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121985977#Comment_121985977

A wise man indeed haha

A cup of te

@jellybear thanks a million for letting me know. I'll try make it there some weekend. Was just looking it upon Facebook. I fancy some of those lights/signs for the front of the house!

BK5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121985990#Comment_121985990

She'll pick them, I'll pay for them and then I'll hang them and it will still be my fault if she doesn't like them 😃😃

BK5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121983820#Comment_121983820

Def opened at the weekends, it's a garden centre also called the Beech Vista M50 Garden Centre.

Just checked the website and they are opened Sat - 9:30am to 5pm & Sun - 11am to 5pm.

Smell the glove

This Christmas will be the first Christmas in a house that I own. I've never had outdoor lights, either on the rented house.or my parents house. Can someone give some tips or answers, these may seem stupid but as I said I've never done them! Thinking of something along the lines of warm white lights going around the outline of the windows and door. Just wondering how are they kept in place? Is there special hooks you can get? How do the hooks stay in place? And does the wiring just slot in the window and the window closes on the wire handy? And I presume there's a timer setting on the plug? How many would you need for standard windows and door?

CheerLouth

Oh how exciting @Smell the glove! We have our lights up all year round. Mr. CL clipped them to the gutters and they've lasted years. We got the outdoor sets from Homestore & More that you can connect together so only one plug. We've a long bungalow so probably have about 10 sets connected together!

If you can, I'd get an outdoor socket (or two). Ours are on an outdoor socket which Mr. CL then added a timer to on the interior wall so we set them on a timer and don't have to worry about going outside to turn them off at night.

BK5

Hi @Smell the glove, firstly congratulations on your new house and the very best of luck with it.

As @CheerLouth has said an outdoor socket is a gift for decorating the house, I plug a weatherproof box from mine that has 4 sockets in it so we can run more lights safely. Gutters are easy with a few packs of gutter hooks.

Not sure how you'll outline the windows and doors without drilling or hammering into your brickwork or plastering of your house. If your idea is to stick rows of lights onto the window frames and door frames then I suppose you could get the sticky hooks, look up Command adhesive hooks for this, they can be bought in any B&Q etc. We decorate the windows and doors by using the little sucker things directly onto the glass and hang whatever off them.

Hope you get great craic from decorating your first Christmas in your new home.

SCOOP 64

The lead for my cutter lights I put through the window and just closes been doing this year's never had any problems, Just make sure when you close it doesn't get caught in the angle bracket.

freshpopcorn

Now that's its April.

We've just three Christmas free months May, June and July.

Until, the Christmas Shop opens in Brown Thomas.

Of you want to be really bad take out July because sometimes in the UK gets stuff in late July.

CheerLouth

Another rainy day…kids fed up of it too - complaining, at breakfast time, that they won't get out to the yard if it keeps up. Little fella is supposed to be back to football on Friday evening but looking unlikely as all of the pitches are closed at the minute :(

DvB

Beyond sick of cr*p weather at this stage. Whatever about matches being cancelled we're struggling to even get out for walks these days. Forecast for most of the week is wet, wet, wet too so nochange for the foreseeable either.

At this stage I just want to skip 8 weeks to our holiday in the sun and fingers crossed after that the summer here will be at least not wet, wet, wet!

DvB

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121988776#Comment_121988776

Don't forget Christmas in July!!! 😀

All kidding aside, I'll be sticking with September as the first month with Christmas build up vibes. July & August are just too soon for me to consider them as even remotely part of the extended build up. We'd usually start our prep towards the mid/end of september (after the kids go back to school) with gifts etc being started then for the kids.

dubstepper

Another option for outdoor is solar. We had something like below for about 3 years out the back and they worked great. Fully disclosure, they are better in summer/autumn when you get more day light. We had them for the back all year but went wired for the front at Christmas.

https://www.temu.com/ie/1-pack-20-50-100-led-solar-string-lights-outdoor-waterproof-solar-festoon-fairy-light-for-garden-christmas-festival-decor-g-601099519630258.html

CheerLouth

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121991487#Comment_121991487

Ditto! We are on a countdown already for our holidays & it's not until July!

Andrew93

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121987047#Comment_121987047

Will be in the same boat myself this year coming will be our first in our own home. (We officially moved in Dec 23rd 2023, but we barely had furniture never mind decorations). Looking forward to starting my collection of decorations going forward. Have a kitty that I'm topping up every month to FastTrack the essentials 😁

DvB

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121991996#Comment_121991996

The one suggestion i'd make is quality over quantity. When I first moved out I had nothing & ended up trying to do too much too soon, with the result I ended up binning a lot of cheap crap that aged poorly. I restarted & bought more expensive & better quality bits and just added to them over the years, and that definitely looks better IMO.

pigtail33

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121991487#Comment_121991487

It really is a depressing sight. I'll wrap up and go out for my walk in most weathers, a bit of drizzle wouldn't bother me, but the constant rain is just too much. I hate getting home with wet feet.

Andrew93

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121992179#Comment_121992179

Thanks for the advice. I would have the tendency to purchase a load of cheap crap to fill the house this year. I'll definitely make sure the main items (tree, lights etc) are high quality.

antimatterx

Rain hadn't let up all day and doesn't look like it will this evening. Won't be getting a walk in by the looks of it

jellybear

No walk for myself and the doggy this evening 😔

On the plus side, it's my sister's birthday tomorrow so we've decided to go out for breakfast just us and my little girl AND dinner with the whole family tomorrow...sure what else would you be doing in this weather 😆