My wife and I decided last year that we were going to decorate for ourselves, and that the people on the street would come second.  

At the time, we lived in a house with a courtyard.  The great part about that was the privacy...but this was bad for Christmas decorations, because our front yard was behind a 7 foot wall.  So instead of decorating the outside, we decorated the inside of our courtyard.  It was great because we could see all of the lights from our front windows.  Having the lights inside of our yard also let us decorate for the kids.  

We took their playhouse and put lights both inside and outside of it, then we played in it with the lights on for the entire season.  It was great!

In the picture on the right, the Santa and Snowman are actually facing away from the street, and toward our windows.  To the left, you can see the playhouse that we decorated.

So don't be afraid to be go against the norm and decorate for yourself!