The 4th annual "horrible Christmas decorations" thread

[Thomas Veil]

(Well, all right, it's only the first year I'm posting the subject here. I've done it three other years at previous forums, though, so if you have a problem with that, just be grateful that I've brought my business here. :D )

Anyway.

This is just an invite to rip your neighbors' lousy Christmas decorations.

You know...the giant, lit-up, inflatable Frosty. Or those godawful projectors people shine on their garage doors. Or the giant plastic candy canes that they use to line their driveways.

We've got one guy in our town who every year sets up a giant outdoor manger scene, replete with internally-lit people. Trouble is, the guy went a little nuts with his display. He doesn't seem to realize there were only three shepherds. He's got something that looks like the entire cast of "Spartacus" out there. A dozen shepherds, two or three Josephs....

Then, of course, there are the people who string 100,000 lights on their house in an attempt to simulate the Las Vegas strip, keep their neighbors awake all night, and crash the local electric company's power grid. :rolleyes:

So g'head...tell us about your neighbors who go either tacky or overboard with their Christmas decorations.

[Applespider]

Not a neighbour's but probably some of the most expensive! I nominate the main Oxford St lights in London. It's the main shopping drag in the biggest city in the UK and it has big archways, made out of black painted plywood, on every other block with scaffolding sticking out of the top and 3 laser/floodlights that can be pointed in various directions and in various colours into the night sky. It looks like a dodgy nightclub not the main Christmas decorations!

On the other hand, the ones in Regent St with snowflakes and movie characters are Incredible! :)

[robbieduncan]

This thread is worthless without pictures!

[StarbucksSam]

I have to say that I really can't stand the "reef in every window" thing. Like, it's nice to see a few, but these very generic fake-looking reefs in EVERY window of uniform size are VERY annoying.

My other neighbor has lights outside of the house and is kind enough to leave them up through FEBRUARY.

[Thomas Veil]

This thread is worthless without pictures!


http://users.adelphia.net/~tjveil/images/grinch.gif

There. Happy? ;)

[emw]

I have to say that I really can't stand the "reef in every window" thing. Like, it's nice to see a few, but these very generic fake-looking reefs in EVERY window of uniform size are VERY annoying.


Yeah, I hate it when those scuba divers come back from the Keys with illegal stashes of protected reefs just to throw them in their windows for Christmas! ;)

Of course, I don't really like the proliferation of Christmas wreaths either.

Having said that, our across-the-park neighbor recently discontinued (thank you) his Christmas tradition. Not only did he have hundreds of plastic toy soldiers, elves, Santas, candy-canes, etc., he also blared Christmas music through external speakers all day. Ouch.

[Lord Blackadder]

Ah, yes, christmas decorations. :mad:

My neighbors compete with each other. On one side it's Christmas with the Kranks, on the other it's National Lampoon's Christmas. Last year the one fell off the roof, and the other caught his bushes on fire with some bad wiring (the idiot had plugged a computer power strip into an outdoor outlet and plugged all his lights into it...). But they've got it all, the inflatable stuff, the lights, projectors, goofy plastic figures. Their meters must be spinning like a top.

What happened to CHRISTmas? I hate to sound preachy (and apologise for the rant), but the holiday has been viciously ravished by the commercial sector, and it becomes more apparent every year.

Personally I'd just prefer to get it all out in the open: a 12-foot high dollar sign strung with lights on my front lawn, next to a 12-foot middle finger strung with lights.

[wdlove]

http://users.adelphia.net/~tjveil/images/grinch.gif

There. Happy? ;)

No, I would actually like to see some examples of Christmas decorations that are in poor taste. Then we could have an actual discussion about them. :D

[Lord Blackadder]

This thread (http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread/t-41112.html) from a UK forum has a couple pictures of when things go too far.

Nice or Naff. a funny expression to these 'Merican ears.

[MacFan26]

Personally I'd just prefer to get it all out in the open: a 12-foot high dollar sign strung with lights on my front lawn, next to a 12-foot middle finger strung with lights.
Now THAT I'd like to see! :) And yeah I agree about the CHRISTmas comment. I'm not religious and don't celebrate Christmas in the religious sense, and most of my friends don't either, so I think we need to call it something else, so we can distinguish people who celebrate Christmas, and those who celebrate "Christmas."

[ravenvii]

I just call it Xmas :D

[OryHara]

Im an atheist, and even I hate how people "Celebrate" the birth of their lord by spending hundreds of dollars to keep me up with their damn blinding lights. :mad:

[MacFan26]

I just call it Xmas :D
:D good point

[bankshot]

I just call it Xmas :D

So you say "Tenmas"? :p

[bankshot]

For the most part, I really like seeing all the Christmas lights. My wife and I bought our first house this past summer, so I've been excited to finally put up my own lights. It's been kind of a dream of mine since I was a kid. I figure I'll start out reasonable the first year and keep on adding each year (just got back from the store with a bunch for this year - hopefully they'll look pretty decent). 10 years from now I'll be the guy that had to wire in 10 new circuits and has a $1000 electric bill in December. :D

Speaking of that Grinch picture up above, here's a recent news story (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2004/11/29/740163.html) to go with that and the subject of this thread. I hope none of you are like those crabby neighbors... :eek: :rolleyes: ;)

[virividox]

some of the pictures on that link are just TACKY

[StarbucksSam]

Okay, so while we're on the subject of horrible neighbors:

We have our annual holiday party at my house and our neighbors from across the street whom we secretly don't really like but simultaneously treat kindly were invited - they didn't RSVP at all, and they showed up to the party - 2 hours late. I think they kind of discounted the invitation as unimportant, saw all of the cars, and threw something on. How rude.

[3rdpath]

in dallas theres a display thats always p/o'd me ( which isn't easy to do near christmas...).

every year on armstrong pkwy in highland park, considered the nicest street in the wealthiest neighborhood, there is a manger scene that has santa kneeling down by baby jesus. yep, good ole saint nick among the wise men, sheep, joseph and mary.

it would be perfect if they had santa's sleigh parked next to the camels...

[wdlove]

I just call it Xmas :D

I dislike the term Xmas, takes away the real meaning. To me it is Christmas, Merry Christmas. I don't like it that the secularist are trying to ruin this holiday by imtimidation.

[AmigoMac]

Found this:

http://www.christmassilhouettes.co.uk/assets/images/db_images/db_homer1.jpg

[aricher]

I love this site:

http://www.uglychristmaslights.com/ (http://)

The winner (so far) from this year (click to make larger):

[aricher]

Another great one:

[wordmunger]

My aunt's house in Hawaii was actually on HGTV's Extreme Christmas (http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/remodeling/article/0,1797,HGTV_3659_2480365,00.html) last year. It's pretty darn tacky, but they came off as being relatively restrained compared to some of the featured homes! I still can't believe they invite strangers into their house at Christmas time. My aunt is very sick this year, so I'm not sure they're going to do it again this time around.

My personal pet peeve is those giant internally lit inflatable thingies. I don't mind all the elaborate strings of lights, but somehow a 15-foot inflatable Santa seems like "cheating."

[Chip NoVaMac]

This thread (http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread/t-41112.html) from a UK forum has a couple pictures of when things go too far.

Nice or Naff. a funny expression to these 'Merican ears.

Hey, what are you saying? Used to live in a high-rise building that was predominately Jewish. Lived on the top floor. One Christmas I put up about 750 to 1000 lights on our balcony. A friend of mine joked that I might end up with a 737 in the living room from a wayward pilot. :eek:

[_bnkr612]

Another great one:


Griswold's house!

One of my favorite top ten christmas movies... (new thread coming)

[jazzmfk]

My first house was on a very narrow, very rural (well, for New Jersey, that is....) side street. Almost everyone on the block was related to everyone else - kinda scary. I rounded the corner one night just before our first Christmas to find our next-door neighbor standing in the middle of the road, drinking a beer, admiring his work. He had just made a beer can pyramid (10 cans!), cut off the tops, poked holes in the bottoms, and inserted lights through the holes. He then mounted his "tree" right to the porch railing out front. On the plus side, he did offer me the last beer in the twelve pack (I politely refused). On the minus side, as he held up the beer he was drinking and the beer he was offering, I noticed that both his hands were scratched and bleeding - probably from the construction phase of the project.


He did seem very proud of his work, though.
MFK

[parrothead]

Here in Honolulu there are these people that mount a deer head on the OUTSIDE of their house. I guess it is supposed to be a reindeer cause they put lights all around it and a santa hat on it. I think last year they had painted the nose red. I must swing by and try to get a picture of it. :eek:

[Kyle?]

Actually, I believe the x in Xmas is actually referring to the greek letter chi, the first letter in the greek spelling of Christ. This form of Christmas has been used for many years and is not intended to exclude Christ from Christmas.

xmas (http://www.bartleby.com/61/80/X0008000.html)

[Chip NoVaMac]

Here in Honolulu there are these people that mount a deer head on the OUTSIDE of their house. I guess it is supposed to be a reindeer cause they put lights all around it and a santa hat on it. I think last year they had painted the nose red. I must swing by and try to get a picture of it. :eek:

Reminds me of a house I saw in NM. They had this big cactus (you know the one with the arms) with lights and a Santa's cap....

[Thomas Veil]

Another great one:
That, to me, is the definition of Too Much.


<beer can tree story>
On the other hand, there are things that are worse.... :p


I think the most common thing I see that annoys me is what I call the "eclectic look".

I'm not a graphic designer, but I'm a video editor, so I do have a strong visual sense for how things go together. And I know what strikes me as anywhere from "just off" to totally wrong.

You'll know what I'm talking about here: the house that has big, multi-colored C7 lights along the rooftop, icicle lights above the garage, one bush that is clear white mini-lights and another that is red-and-green. THEME, people! I hate it when you look at a house and can just hear the owner going, "Son, hand me some lights. I don't care, any damn thing."

[rainman::|:|]

well, being (as close to atheist as possible while still having some spirituality), i find it all highly annoying. But while I was in Chicago shopping recently, I saw a house in the suburbs that took the cake. About 11 of those huge inflatable figures in someone's yard. A row down each side (it was a corner lot) of santas, angels, snowmen, the like. Then, forming the corner centerpiece of the two rows, was a giant Shrek. Not even a santa-shrek, or something like that. Just a big shrek. I doubt they could even see out of their house.

I'll assume, or at least hope, that they sell them. Otherwise... *looney tunes theme song*

paul