i decided to get a string of lights for the outside. the part of the house i want to emphasize is the beauty of the trees. there are two birch trees in the front yard. i took 5 minutes to wrap the string around one:

the next thought is wow - what about doing each trunk. what about wrapping each branch in a string of lights. i got a string of C lights and plugged them into the kill-a-watt meter - 175 watts! for one string! i took them back and got the mini-lights. that one string in the photo is 100 lights that use 22 watts.

clear-white or multicolored was a tough choice. i like the classic look of clear white but in the end, the multicolored seemed more family/traditional which fits in better with the neighborhood.