Fun? Or Pressure?

Only You Can Decide.

Advice columnist "Someone Else's Mom" -- I love that pen name. -- helps doubting sane people remember that it's okay not to go into debt or waste enormous amounts of time decorating just because the neighbors do.

Someone wrote in:

I did do a little more last year for Christmas, but I'm not willing to go for broke on a bunch of new lights and stuff when I have perfectly good decorations already. Eventually I will invest in LED lights, but I'm not looking to do that at a time when everything is so inflated and with two kids in college and work that needs to be done around the house, especially since I like how our place looks with its old incandescent strings of lights.

My wife told me to stop nickel-and-diming and to get onboard with the spirit of the holidays. She says I'm being cheap, but seriously, Thanksgiving decorations? Doesn't it make more sense to put the money into what we need rather than to compete for a yard sign saying we are the best decorated house on the block? [bold added]

Talk about a low ratio of return to cost! And we haven't even factored in the value of the time that would eat up no matter what.

There is nothing wrong with going all out on seasonal decorations or even entering a contest, if that's something you enjoy or that really does seem like fun to you.

But if all you're doing is trying to impress your neighbors, it's time to check your premises.

The holidays are stressful enough already. The only thing I might have added to the short reply was something like, Use this as your chance to get comfortable telling neighbors things like, 'Thanks, but I'm sitting this one out. Have fun.'

-- CAV