Easter uprising over Christmas lights

Christmas decorations are staying up until Easter at one house in Brighton after a ding-dong over fairy lights.

The owner defied the rule to switch off lights by the 12th night of Christmas last weekend after receiving hate mail criticising his taste.

An unsigned Christmas card was sent to businessman Lawrence Whitaker, of Withdean Crescent.

It read: “Congratulations, you have won a prize for erecting the most tawdry and tasteless Christmas lights.

“It really makes the street look like a cheap nightclub strip.”

Neighbours have rallied round and are urging Mr Whitaker to spurn the “old Scrooge” and keep the lights on.

Mr Whitaker, a 55-year-old company director, and his wife put coloured lights in bushes and erected a 6ft artificial palm tree with yellow and green lights outside their detached home.

He said: “I don’t know if it’s the tree that has upset this person but plenty of people have said how much they like it.

“One asked long before Christmas when it was going up because their grandchild saw it last year and liked it so much.

“Neighbours have suggested scorning the critic by keeping the lights on until Palm Sunday, just before Easter.

“I agree that Christmas lights are a matter of taste but I hardly think our lights have turned the street into something out of Las Vegas.”

Mr Whitaker has since taken the lights out of the bushes with the help of his next door neighbours but is leaving the palm tree.

He said: “We got it in Florida a couple of years ago and it has gone up for the past two years.

“When we got the card we did not think too much of it but it is funny and our neighbours thought it was nonsense.”

Neighbour Chrissie Spicer, who lives opposite the Whitakers, said she had no idea who might have sent the card as all the neighbours were friendly.

She said: “Most of the neighbours really enjoy the lights and they are brilliant. We think it is sad that someone had to send an anonymous card criticising what, they say, are tacky decorations.

If they felt that strongly they should have knocked on the door. It is very petty.

“Talking to all the other neighbours, the majority of them enjoy the lights.

“There are lots of other houses in Brighton with far more decorations, which people might perhaps say are tackier.

“At the end of the day it’s a couple of weeks over Christmas and it’s nice to brighten the street up.”