Late Thursday afternoons, it's dark as I drive With-a-Why home from his piano lesson, and today we noticed that some homes had Christmas lights already. Ironically, the warmer the weather is at Thanksgiving, the more likely people are to put up lights. It's understandable that people are more willing to get out the ladders and staple guns when they don't have to trudge through snowdrifts and fight icy winds, but to me, Christmas lights look strange and out of place when there is no snow. Oh, we are sure to get some snow eventually, but right now we are having an unusual warm spell and the houses that still have their Halloween decorations up look more in keeping with the season.
As we turned onto one street, With-a-Why gasped in horror and said, "Look!"
The houses on the street were mostly dark, since most people were still at work. A strong wind was blowing dead leaves across the lawns and shaking the mailboxes. In almost every front yard stood a huge inflatable Santa. Not just life-size, larger than life. These huge floating Santas appeared to be tethered in some way as they bobbed in the wind, looming over anything human-sized. White beards and weird smiles glowed in the dark, high above our car. Maybe if the figures were nestled into snowbanks, they would seem cheery and Christmassy but that was not the effect here at all. This was creepy. It was if some kind of evil Santa had cloned himself and was poised to take over the world.
And it got worse. At the edge of one house, glowing white and even creepier, shining in the streetlight, was a gigantic snowman with an evil grin, bobbing up in the cold November wind, high above mailboxes and trash cans. Remember the scene in the Ghostbusters movie in which the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man was threatening to destroy the city? Exactly. like. that.
I just know this is going to give me nightmares.
20 comments:
Those inflatable things give me the creeps too. It's really weird to see them deflated and spread out on the lawn at night after the fans that inflate them are turned off.
Yes. Could it get any more ridiculous? I saw a Santa at one store that moved and talked. My husband jumped a mile. It was terrifying.
I guess our lights over here always look a little out of place. It's a lot different to have lights bobbing above the flooding streets.
Ooohhh, horrors! That sounds like a nightmare!
Those things are all over my neighborhood--some people even have them on their roofs. I just don't understand why people like them.
I hear there's a giant Abominable Snow Monster somewhere in our vicinity. I'm not at all sure I want to see it.
Oh no. Those huge inflatable things are hideous.
Those inflatable things ARE hideous.
Have you seen the inflatable "snow globes"? EEEK.
And I can't help thinking that the carbon emissions in December alone must be frightful.
There is never snow here for the Christmas lights. It's rather sad.
But when you look at the US Weather Service Map of who gets a white Christmas, it's always surprising how narrow the 75-100% chance band really is.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/homeandgarden/holidays/
Heh...when i lived in FL after college, I was always amazed at the lengths they go to to decorate...then I realized it was because it is warm. In the NE, it's sometimes all we can do to run outside quickly and barely chuck some lights on a bush before coming in from the cold. The weirdest thing they do in FL is COVER their lawns with white felt to pretend it is snow.
Oh...and those blow up santa/snowmen/snowglobes...T-A-C-K-Y...I consider them the plastic glow nativity sets of the new Millenium :)
I hate those blow-up things, too. They're both tacky and noisy and wasteful.
The lights-with-no-snow thing doesn't bother me -- that describes most of my experience with the holidays.
I do find that I miss the tradition of luminarias (little paper bags filled with sand and a lit candle, aligned along the driveway). They tend to get soggy and sad in any kind of rain or snow. They do now have plastic, plug-in versions (!) which are not at all the same.
You'd never survive here. We have had snow that stuck to the ground exactly twice in my life here. In 2004, we had snow on Christmas Eve...a first! It was definitely the most magical Christmas we've ever had....but normally, there is no snow to compliment our Christmas decorations. It was above 85 when we decorated our home.
I hate inflatable Santa's...they seem like a decorating cop out.
Those inflatable things are an abomination. Hate 'em. We put our lights up early this year,too. We got them out and ready, and will start plugging in on the 5th, which is my official, totally arbitrary start to the season.
*shudders* I really dislike those monstrosities. We have several on our street and they are just creepy.
Your description of it is going to give ME nightmares... eeeeeek!
Hee hee! I tried to convince Josh that we needed to buy a family of light-up snowmen for the front yard, but apparently that is tacky. I say that a mommy, daddy and baby snowman is damn cute!
I'm exactly with you on that, jo(e). They give me the creeps. I also only decorate for Christmas once there's snow on the ground. Unfortunately, it turns out that I moved to a place where normally it doesn't snow. (As a result of it not looking Christmassy, I actually forgot to decorate last year.) Fortunately, we had a freak snow storm this week, which got me decorating earlier than I normally do.
Our neighbour has one of those blow up Santa's. It freaks J out every morning to see Santa lying on the grass (now snow). We just keep telling him Santa sleeps during the day.
Tacky, tacky, tacky.
God, they're horrible. I am guilty of putting up my Christmas lights early this year, thanks to the good weather, but it's only one string! Some of the things I've seen are soooooo awful.
I found those inflatables really obnoxious. Down the street from us, they put up a giant Santa, Snoopy, Charlie Brown, reindeer and more. I cringe whenever I drive past it and I admit I have contemplated ways of deflating them!
This weekend, we saw... wait for it... not one, but TWO inflatables in the shape of a creche. A cartoony-fake-wood-patterned-manger-with-cartoony-with-lights-inside-holy-family creche.
TAA-AA-kee!
(Why? Why?)
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