Let's face it, at the holidays, "tasteful" is a friendly suggestion. There seems to be an unwritten rule that if your light show can blind astronauts on the space station, you win the holiday decoration craze. For businesses accustomed to having to shout to get their marketing message across, it feels like a natural extension of the "scream and be heard" method.

But there is something to be said for subtlety. Simplicity. Elegance.

And that something is this: whether you're decorating a business or a home, holiday visitors are stressed out and over-stimulated. They are looking for a place that will calm them down and make them feel like they really have come home for the holidays.

Basic color theory states that complementary colors, those that are opposite each other on the color wheel, will be interesting and provoke a stronger reaction. Blue and orange, yellow and purple, and red and green. Traditional Christmas colors are designed to make people looking at them react strongly. If you want to steer away from gaudy, that means you need to steer away from bright red and green.

You can do this in two ways. First, steer entirely away from the cliched red/green combination in the first place. Consider all the other wonderful colors in the rainbow. In particular, look at the natural world around you for colors. Nature is the best painter-- bringing outdoor colors into your space is a great way to break down the barrier between yourself and your visitors. In a window display, it can form a kind of visual "reflection" of the natural world. This is especially true if your "nature inspired" display reflects undeveloped nature, when you're located in the middle of downtown.

Look to whites, blues, purples to reflect ice and snowflakes. Pine green is a fine green. Reds should have a darker tone-- bright red is one of the "lizard brain" colors. Exciting, but provoking, and therefore: gaudy. If you go with warm tones and red, accent with gold. If you use blue, accent with silver. You can change that up a little, because metals are technically neutral tones, and a white-and-gold display can be arresting and beautiful. If you're not careful, though, it can also look like an overpriced living room set from the 1980's.

Think about the theme you want to convey. I recently went on a "lights cruise" where I saw some of the most beautiful-- and some of the most tacky-- holiday lights in the Southwest United States. My favorites? The home-made displays that featured traditional native animal imagery silhouetted in lights, like Coyote howling at the moon, and Bear, and the animated penguin silhouettes diving onto a snowbank and flipping up into the sky. They were cute, and they were original.

Above all, stay away from store-bought pre-fab decorations. Yes, your lights will be pre-made, in strands. But inflatable anything is OUT! And the lit reindeer, while interesting, are exactly the same shape as the lit reindeer in your neighbor's yard or display. Boooo-ring!

If you're decorating for a window display in a business, aim for a theme that matches your business. Sell books? How about a Christmas tree with piles of books underneath? Or mini gift books hanging off the tree as ornaments? Sell clothes? Put your best-dressed mannequin in the window in a pose that says "I'm just going out to enjoy the snow! Be back in a few minutes!" Pet store? "Santa's visit from the dog's perspective." Think of your core products and make your display speak to that.

If you're running out of time, of course, you should go for a REALLY SIMPLE theme, which can be as simple as the colors you chose, emphasized in lights and ornaments, and left alone. Never underestimate the power of 500 clear/white lights outlining the lines of your windows and doorways.

How not to have a gaudy holiday display. (If you're aiming for gaudy, consider this a to-do list):

DON'T:

• Use store-bought inflatable decorations. Inflatable holiday decorations always deflate, thanks to temperature changes, and then they just look sad.
• Combine more than 2 main colors into a display. Red and green. Blue and violet. Yellow and blue. Fine. Red and green and yellow? Too much. Use white and either silver or gold as neutral tones to highlight.
• Use pre-shaped light displays. Everyone has them. Be unique.
• Use blinking lights. Or, if you do have blinking lights, make sure they're not choreographed to force an epileptic seizure. Fast blinking lights are out, as are lights where the entire display blinks on an off at the same time, like some neurotic holiday telegraph, sending out a Morse code message to Santa: "Help... I... can't... get... my... lights... to... stay... on!"
• Use multi-colored lights. For the most part, colored lights don't make the display better, but if you are putting colored lights up, use one color only. Otherwise, you fall into the too many colors.
• Use too much. Most holiday decorations benefit from scaling back. If you can't see the pine tree under the ornaments, take about a third of the ornaments off.
• Use too little. There's a fine line between "simple" and "pathetic." Only you can decide if there are too few lights, ornaments, or decorations. Walking around to see your competition might result in escalation, an arms race of Christmas lights, but it can also give you a little perspective.