Color Splash

Despite anything Clayton says about white lights, I will always like colored Christmas lights more. He thinks they're, more or less, tacky, but I think that white lights are too dull. Colored lights are festive, cheery, and create really nice mood lighting, which white lights just can't pull off. Take these nutcrackers for example... In basic white light, they are merely nutcrackers, but in a mixture of bright colors, they have almost a magical feel to them, like they are from "The Nutcracker" itself, just waiting to come alive when everyone is asleep. I also love the way the various colors splash and swirl together on the ceiling and all of the nearby walls. Clayton said that it all just makes an ugly brown... I wonder if we'll still be having this debate when we finally own a house somewhere down the road.

As for the nutcrackers, these are only about half of all of the nutcrackers in my mother's collection, sitting above the fireplace on the mantle. They are probably my favorite Christmas decorations in the house. Someday, I hope to have as many nutcrackers in my house as my mother has in hers, if not more.