Operation TIPS: Christmas Decoration Hell
Get your cameras ready, oh faithfull TIPsters. I have a mission for you: Seek and destroy The Evil Overdecorator. You know who I'm talking about; the guy who uses more electricity for his Christmas decorations than an entire small city. The neighbor who makes it look as if the Wal-Mart Christmas department threw up on her lawn.
I have a list of tips so you can determine whether or not you should report your neighbors to the TIPS Christmas hotline:
1. Does the brightness of their lighting display cause low-flying planes to think they are approaching a landing strip?
2. Do they have a soundtrack of sappy Christmas songs playing on repeat all night long?
3. Do they mix in other holidays (Fourth of July, Halloween) with their Christmas decorations?
4. Is their nativity scene represented by cartoon characters or are they using characters that have nothing whatsover to do with Christmas and should not be used in any decorations ever? (see, Pokemon display)
5. Are any of the inflatable decorations over four feet tall?
6. Does a line of cars form down your block from December 1st until New Years, turning your neighborhood into a tourist attraction?
7. Do they charge people to view the lights?
8. Have they turned any of their lawn junk into decorations?
9. Do they have flashing or lighted messages boards whose size rivals that of the Shea Stadium Diamond Vision?
10. Do they force their kids to re-enact The Night Before Christmas on their lawn every night?
11. Do they advertise their display in the local paper?
12. Do they have an animatronic Nutcracker Suite?
13. Is the Santa they hired to "ho-ho-ho" all night long is drunk?
14. Do they have a lighted birthday cake for Jesus?
I think you get the point. I am entrusting that none of you have made any of the above errors in judgment.
Now, I am sending you out into the wild, armed with your cameras to hunt down the perpetrators of any of the above Christmas crimes and report back to me. Rewards to be had for the person who brings in the most offenders. You may also use this opportunity to turn yourself in if you are a guilty party and receive amnesty before one of your neighbors rats on you.
I will be out trolling the streets of Long Island, looking for the most tasteless, tacky decorations I can find. Two words: wire cutters.
I got 'em and I'm not afraid to use them.
Reader Carol sends a link to Bright Nights. I mean, what's Christmas without a 48 foot high poinsettia?
I'm having way too much fine finding these tacky pictures. I'll add more as the day goes on. And don't forget to vote in the Bloggerville's Favorite Holiday Movies poll
Comments
Yesterday, as I was wandering through the BX Home and Garden shop, I came upon the most horrendous thing I've ever seen.
An 8' tall, self-inflating Santa.
I think I might get one for my Aunt and Uncle. They're the only people I know that might be crazy enough to use it.
Posted by: Dave | December 1, 2002 10:13 AM
Just wait, I'm going to have my dad go take shots of the dueling neighbors for ya. I don't know if it's the fully lit sleigh and snowmen on the one roof, or the 6 foot glowing Bible in the yard that makes me lose it every year. :)
Posted by: Elfchick | December 1, 2002 12:10 PM
There was a guy on the news the other day whose electricity bill was $1,100 a month (because of Christmas decorations). He seemed lonely to me, as if he did it because he enjoyed the attention he got and couldn't get it any other way. In fact it looked like he hadn't got any "attention" in quite some time.
Anyhow, we only have a single strip of rope lights. Quite tasteful and understated.
Posted by: Wilde | December 1, 2002 12:29 PM
Ooooooo! In my neighborhood, I should be able to get enough photos to beat anyone else! People around here had started putting up decorations before Election Day!
Posted by: Kim | December 1, 2002 12:45 PM
I love ya, but if you come near my house with wire cutters I'm fighting a girl, I swear to gawd.
I only aspire to be one of those guys...so far I only overload the inside of my house at Christmas time. :)
Posted by: JimK | December 1, 2002 01:55 PM
Just take plenty of pictures, Jim.
Posted by: michele | December 1, 2002 02:16 PM
Heh... I clicked on that "lighted message board" link, and misread the banner as "Trial of Lights".
...but on reflection, I'm not sure I was wrong.
Posted by: Troy | December 1, 2002 02:57 PM
I MAY put up lights in my window this year. I may even put out my lighted homemade stars......but, that's IT for the outside of my house. I'm sorry. Californians can't afford the elaborate lighting displays....and even if we could, people don't know when to stop!
Posted by: Da Goddess | December 1, 2002 07:05 PM
Hmm - pointsettias. In my parent's old house in Sydney, Australia, we had a pointsettia bush - err, tree - that in May 2001 was probably 8 foot tall. When I came here to the US and saw the pitiful potted specimins, I said "who shrunk the pointsettias?"
Posted by: Ken | December 1, 2002 07:18 PM
Michele, I saw a lit flying sleigh with reindeer tonight . . . and one house has a lot of lit snowmen. Can't wait to see 'em all lit up!
Posted by: Scott | December 1, 2002 10:48 PM
Hey, Michele. Here's an entry for your campaign against yuletide tackiness:
http://www.jerrypalmer.com/WalkwayofLights/walkway/walkway.htm
It's the Christmas City Walkway of Lights in my hometown of Marion, Indiana. A freakish behemoth of holidy over-indulgence, it is a seizure-causing onslaught of some 33,000 lights lining several miles of riverbank and ending in a pool of a light at a city park. I can only assume that astronauts can see it from space.
Posted by: Chad | December 1, 2002 11:51 PM
I guess this means that if I ever get around to putting Godzilla in a sleigh drawn by eight pink flamingos on my roof, I shouldn't invite you over, huh?
Posted by: wheels | December 2, 2002 12:36 AM
I live in the midwest... I saw a horible tacky christmas display across the street from a gay bar. pictures soon to be forthcoming.
Posted by: mike | December 2, 2002 04:10 AM
Every year here in Baltimore, an entire street goes whole hog to light up the world with holiday decorations. Is a hubcap Christmas tree tacky enough or do I have to pull out the bicycle wheel snowmen?
Posted by: john | December 2, 2002 08:29 AM
Michele:
I posted this link a couple of comments back but didn't format it. Be sure to check out both the photo gallery and the 12 Days of Christmas. Be careful if you're diabetic - a lot of this is ultra high on sugary sweetness.
Christmas City Walkway of Lights.
Posted by: Chad | December 3, 2002 12:49 AM
ey niCe site man ..
Posted by: Jellana | December 3, 2002 04:11 PM
Michele -- Come on, Long Island Girl! I can't believe you're not gearing up for the ultimate Long Island light display...the holiday light show at Jones Beach!
(And if the $12-15 per carload is too much for you, as it may be for us, there's always Harrow's!)
Posted by: roe | December 4, 2002 03:04 PM
My sister already took the kids to the beach show. I refuse to pay that much money to look at a bunch of lights. I could drive down any block around here and get the same effect for free, with the benefit of it not having Tommy Hilfeger's name attached to it.
Posted by: michele | December 4, 2002 03:06 PM
Come with me to the EclecticGramma's Christmas pages to see kitschy extravagant Christmas decorations in a small town. ;-))
Batty sent me, btw
>..
Posted by: PurpleMoose | December 6, 2002 06:53 PM
we have a neighbor who is an "All-holiday" overdecorator. For goodness sakes do we really need a lighted turkey in the front yard??????
When it comes to christmas time they do not disappoint! We celebrate Chanukkah so all I have to annoy my neighbors with is a dinky little blue lighted menorah which is already gone!
Posted by: amanda | December 7, 2002 12:49 PM
To be fair, the Zilker Trail of Lights is a light display in an Austin city park, not actually someone's house.
Posted by: Addlepated | December 8, 2002 04:21 AM
Go and check out this post in my blog: http://www.ailurophile.com/oldstuph/001530.shtml#001530
The whole damned neighborhood is lit like this...the pictures I took are two of the more elaborate houses!
It's located in Saugus, Massachusetts, on Lynn Fells Parkway, just off of Route One.
Posted by: Christine | December 11, 2002 03:28 PM
You can see (and vote) on some Denver area lights. We're still going to go out and take our own pictures, but I thought it was worth sharing these. (You have to vote to see the next house.)
Posted by: anotherLisa | December 15, 2002 12:37 PM
Does a kidnapped Baby Jesus statue count?
Posted by: Lesley | December 15, 2002 05:09 PM
Notice how many of those 8' inflatable Santas are deflated and flat on the ground most of the time? Never knew Santa needed a blow job that badly!
Posted by: Anonymous | December 20, 2002 12:40 AM
This is our local abomination
The backyard has a blow up Homer as Santa, Grinch in Santa costume, and other inflatibles that were so garish I've chosen to block them from memory.
The photo of the front of the house does not do it justice - the snow flakes flash off and on down the front of the house to imply "falling", the moose's head moves, and the various rope-light creations go on and off in rhythm so that one will be highlighted, then the next. You can't even see the glowing mouse on a glowing swing in that photo... we tried to take photos, but they didn't turn out at all. Thank God.
By the way - to avoid the need for those Santa blow jobs, they run a hot air blower full time. Oh, and I forgot - they had carolers, candy canes, and a full-sized dancing/singing Santa who wiggled his hips like those tacky miniature ones you can get at Walmart.
(The neighbors fight back - they park their cars across the roadway so no one can get through, although their tickets from the Police probably now rival the electricity bill of the offending house)
Posted by: Spamgirl | December 27, 2002 02:40 PM
And another!
This one is right on the lake, so the bitter bitter cold wind knocks you over if you go down to see it. 25% of the rope light is out, so it doesn't even look right. The displays are animated, so you can see such wonderful Christmastime classics as Neptune driving his... chariot? What? Dolphins leaping in the surf? OK, so there are some more merry features, like penguins skating, but still - seems the designer was not inspired.
Best part? Each feature is plugged into it's own box, assumedly with some sort of animating device, and it's all packed up in what? A plastic toolbox. Safety first!
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