Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Saturday, December 22, 2007

War On Tacky Christmas Decorations

A reader (my youngest son) sent in an alarming article on one of the most dangerous trends in our beloved country -- people upset about Christmas Patriots decorating their lawns and homes with tacky, kitschy, mismatched holiday decorations. As a leading local practioner of the Gaudy Arts, I was shocked to hear about people with "good taste" and "a sense of decorum" causing problems for those of us who realize that lawns and homes should be festooned with large inflatables and have enough lights to make passing airliners think there's a landing strip below. Excerpts from the article:
"People have just rows and rows of things," says Kat Shumar, an Indianapolis homeowner and past vice president of her neighborhood association. "They've got Jesus next to Santa, and Mary with the elves -- it's just tacky."
Ms. Shumar is airing her grievances online. This season, she launched a Web site called [TackyChristmasYards], where she challenges people to find and send pictures of yards with the most "violations." Her list of violation categories includes "more is not less" and "multiple Clauses" (competing Santa figures). Under the category "fallen figurines," she implores people to restore to standing position the figures that have tipped over. "No one wants to see Mary and Joseph laying down as if involved in a deadly drive-by shooting," she writes...
...Police in some areas are also saying that the large inflatables -- which can range from 4 to 12 feet tall -- are attracting the attention of vandals who like to poke holes in them and deflate them. Last year in the Cincinnati area, two men were arrested after being caught on video stabbing a Frosty the Snowman with a screwdriver. This month in Lancaster, Pa., someone sliced the head off an inflatable Santa that the Ide family had in their front yard.
"The decorations were for people to enjoy, but I guess it didn't happen like we had hoped," says Jessica Ide.
It's up to us who enjoy the complete absurdity of temporarily lowering property values for miles around just to draw attention to ourselves to Fight The Power and continue to decorate our homes, lawns, and motor vehicles with increasingly outlandish and inappropriate "art". To the Scrooges and Grinches who don't appreciate it, I say: What more do I need to do to get featured on the TackyChristmasYards website?

Update 0805 24 Dec: Woo-hoo! I made it!

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Amen! my thoughts exactly!

12/22/2007 2:53 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Send in a picture! TackyChristmasYards.com would be happy to see what "violations" we can find. It's all done in good fun, and several people have sent in their own homes to see what we come up with. If you are angry about the site, then just ignore it. Looking forward to your possible submission! Merry Christmas!

12/22/2007 6:19 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about this guy:

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2007/dec/21/strange-santa-scene-states-bremerton-mans-on/

12/23/2007 11:30 AM

 
Blogger Jay said...

Bubblehead - you're not even in a league with the truly tacky. You're kind of a tacky-wannabe.

Still, it's so nice to see these monstrosities memorialized on the web. As a kid, growing up in Danville, Va, we used to spend Christmas Eve in the family wagon, the six of us with usually an aunt or two tucked in there, also. We'd drive around Danville, for some reason a small town (~40k) with a disproportionate share of tacky people, and enjoy the show and at the end of the night, we'd all vote as a family for the top three tackyiest houses to get our "Tacky" Awards. Of course, we never actually delivered these awards (most of the recipients being able to buy us several times over), but we reveled in the fact that usually, money couldn't buy taste.

We used to always award extra points for multiple colored Noel candles, and, of course, for the mixed manger scenes, with reindeer and santa's sharing space with the baby Jesus.

Ahhh, the memories

12/23/2007 7:23 PM

 

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