Do you live on the sort of refined street that takes a strictly puritanical approach to Christmas decoration (think perfectly triangular trees glimmering haughtily from first-floor bay windows, ornamented only by minimalist white lights)? Would you sneer at a neighbour who adorned his house with flashing multicoloured reindeer, fluorescent dancing snowmen and a vast neon Santa emerging from the chimney? If so, it’s time to lighten up because top designers are now coming out in favour of neon decor.

Admittedly, Christmas bling doesn’t help if you’re trying to sell your house. A new survey by propertyfinder.com has found that extravagant seasonal decor is the most off-putting factor for buyers after a rubbish-strewn doorstep. However, another survey, by Direct Line Home Insurance, found that one Londoner in seven plans to put up outdoor lights, each spending an average of £70 on an electric display.

It’s time to take a view. The design consultant Stephen Bayley is firmly in the “no neon” camp. “I think any form of decoration is almost always unsuccessful. It is absolutely true that less is more. Christmas decorations are meant to suggest delight and joy, but they’re quite the opposite: bogus, infelicitous and depressing.”

The core of Bayley’s criticism is that over-the-top Christmas decor departs from “the basic moral principles of honesty and humour”. Someone who would fundamentally disagree with this assessment is Ray Jones, who, with his wife Diana, has decorated his home in Egham, Surrey, with garish flashing lights for the past ten Christmases. “We started with a Santa, some reindeer and some icicles,” says Jones, “and it grew from there.”

The Joneses use their crowd-pulling display to raise money for a local home for disabled children, White Lodge in Chertsey, where their son, who has cerebral palsy, was once cared for.

While fiercely proud of his display (he has even entered a GMTV Christmas lights competition this year), Jones’s primary motivation is not to raise money, but to see “the faces of the children who pass the house — they are all wonderment, they are bedazzled”.

The kiddy-appeal of Christmas lights is not disputed, but can anyone seriously argue that an inflatable snowman is art? Nicky Haslam, the interior designer and socialite, says yes. “Christmas decorations are kitsch, but so much art is kitsch that in fact they are a form of art. If you look at the front of Stella McCartney’s shop on Bruton Street or Damien Hirst’s new collection at the Serpentine Gallery, they are just as kitsch as neon Santas, yet they’re considered art and the Santas are not. I think they’re great fun — they’re like Lichtenstein cartoons.”

The whole concept of kitsch is dismissed by Bayley: “Eric Hobsbawm said that the less educated the public, the greater the inclination towards decoration. I think kitsch condescends to poor people. It’s terribly knowing about bad taste and that isn’t attractive.” Yet Haslam does not reject the good taste/bad taste dichotomy. “I do believe there is such a thing as bad taste,” he says. “For example, I would draw the line at those awful black Christmas trees.”

Another defender of kitsch is Tony Chambers, creative director at Wallpaper magazine. “I’m from Liverpool, where they really go to town, and at Christmas we always drive around and pick the best house. If you tell people their taste is bad, you're just being dictatorial. Christmas decorations are ephemeral and a great means of self-expression.”

He goes on to agree with Haslam that kitsch has become an art form. “There’s a new wave of contemporary designers who have embraced kitsch design, taking inspiration from Jeff Koons. For example, Barnaby Barford recently did a chav Nativity scene where he painted a little Burberry scarf on the baby Jesus.”

No designer will admit to erecting neon lights themselves (Chambers lives in the Barbican, where Santa-friendly chimneys are in short supply), although they defend others’ right to do so. Jacqueline Duncan, prinicpal of the Inchbald School of Design in Chelsea, says that she “wouldn’t like to live opposite someone who covered his whole house in hideous lights”, but she also admits that all arguments about good and bad taste are based on snobbishness: “You can take good taste too far, and we should relax and have fun. When the weather is grey and horrid, Christmas lights cheer you up.”

Ray Jones has a robust attitude to those who consider his decorations to be in bad taste. “Maybe they’re just atheists. Why spoil other people’s enjoyment just because they’re an old frump? We’ll definitely carry on — you’ve got to keep things Christmassy.”

Chambers agrees. “There’s less snobbery now than there used to be, because more people are more comfortable with design and the home. Christmas lights are fantastic. In fact, I think I might suggest putting some up at the next Barbican residents’ meeting.”

To donate to White Lodge, call 01932 567131

The Law

So, you have Santa Claus and his reindeer straddling the roof and enough fairy lights to illuminate the Arctic Circle. But what are your legal obligations? Could your neighbour bring an action for anything more than lack of taste?

Public nuisance or anti-social behaviour claim Wokingham District Council successfully took legal action against Vic Moszczynski’s outdoor Christmas lights when it claimed that the hundreds of visitors to the display increased crime in the area and increased policing costs. He got the last laugh, though, as he was invited to switch on the town’s Christmas lights.

LORNA BLACKWOOD

Source: www.aaronandpartners.com

Are you for or against outdoor Christmas decorations?

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