It seems like every household has the same debate every holiday season: Do we decorate the outside of the house with white or colored lights this year? Dad always wants the color, but Mom insists on the white, and you really don't want to get in the middle of it. And maybe the compromise is that Mom gets to decorate the house on even years, and Dad gets to decorate on odd years. People certainly have a preference when it comes to this matter. I am a full-fledged white-light supporter.

There is just something so tastefully simple about white Christmas lights that the colored lights lack. The house itself looks so elegant, almost as if the lights were little icicles hanging down from the roof. The house looks more cohesive as a whole and more classy. Yes, the tacky colored bulbs and blowup Santa Clauses can be cute, but nothing looks more beautiful than a perfectly outlined and uniform-looking house. Houses like these can even get away with keeping their lights up well into the New Year because they are so classic and beautiful; in contrast, once Christmas is over, the obnoxious colored lights have to go.

Santa sees this house and knows he is going here first:

And Rudolph and all of the other reindeer are less impressed by this house:

The bright lights look a little tacky and less representative of the beauty of Christmas. When surrounded by snow, these lights won't glisten like the white Christmas lights will.

Cute? Sure. But is it elegant? Is it a house that you can't help but drive by and take a moment to look at? Nope. People often favor colored lights because they are more fun, festive, and kid-friendly. But I don't think kids really care about this issue as much as adults do. And last time I checked, "The Polar Express," a kid-favorite Christmas movie, is quite monochromatic. For most kids, it's all about the cookies and the presents, not what surrounds them.

Alright, but there's one thing I'm willing the budge on. I am willing to roll with colored lights on a Christmas tree. When it comes to outside decorations, the end goal is to achieve a picture-perfect looking house. But with Christmas trees, the tree should have character and reoresent the family that owns it. Trees straight out of a Macy's catalog are undesirable and impersonal. It is the trees with the ornaments made by a son or daughter back in elementary school, or knitted by grandma right before she passed away that have the most character. And if colored lights are your way of personalizing your tree, then so be it. They don't seem to look tacky either, but just nice enough to be festive and appropriate.

Whether you agree or not is fine with me. But let's hope that Mom gets her way this year with those elegant white lights. Happy Holidays!