Obnoxious Largesse

No, this is not an entry having to do with my fast-food drive-through ordering practices. This is a holiday-themed entry. I figured that this topic has a short window of timeliness, while the other topics I am bandying about (The Man, Zachary’s first illness & yet another thing that is wrong with this country) can wait a bit.

There are many holiday-related issues and annoyances that many of us could take umbrage with. For today I will skip the most annoying – that Christmas has become an almost purely secular holiday, and proceed to what has quickly become a close second – the giant, blow-up cartoon caricatures that are serving as decorations on the lawns and houses of our great nation.

I am all for decorating for the holidays. People that decorate, and even those that over-decorate their properties for the holidays add to the overall enjoyment level of this time of year. I don’t condone over-doing it to the point where neighbors can’t sleep due to the excessive light, but I digress. The past couple of years have seen an alarming rise in the population of garish, larger-than-life inflatable Grinches, Tiggers, Poohs, Snoopies and what-have-you. It also seems that many of the people who have gone this route to decorate their lawns REALLY love these blow-up cartoon characters, because they cannot seem to stop at just one. The obnoxiously large blow-up lawn ornaments tend to appear in clusters.

There was one such cluster in our small townhouse development - one that I am happy to say is no longer with us. The yuletide reveler in question started with one – a giant Tigger with a Santa hat that would have been cute if it didn’t dwarf the front of the house and the houses on either side of it. Then, the giant Tigger was joined by a giant Grinch. The display was most festive, and I am sure the neighbors of this particular celebrant of the birth of Christ were completely in love with the largesse. The display was not done growing yet, however. After spending some time together, the Tigger and Grinch coupled and begat a space-engulfing Snoopy! There were three of these behemoth monstrosities squeezed into a ridiculously small front lawn space! How Christmas-y! We were not surprised some mornings to find all three gargantuan pillars to Christmas festivity slumped into piles of bah-humbug flaccidity, no doubt brought to that fate by either a neighbor who wanted to see out to the street or a declaration of jihad against such obvious symbols of Christian pride.

Directly across the street from our house stands The Grinch, in all of his 8-foot-tall Christmas glory. I considered looking for a giant, blow-up nativity scene to put out front. The first obstacle was my wife wasn’t having it. The second one is that I couldn’t find one. I found 6-foot snow globes and 8-foot Grinches, Snoopies and the like. Bummer.

Perhaps I am overreacting on the subject, being this much of a scrooge over a mostly harmless decorative fad. Perhaps you are considering the purchase of one of these inflatable lawn decorations, or adding to your already established yard population. But take warning: the owner of the house referred to above has moved, and thus our holiday season has been denied the overwhelming cheer was have become accustomed to when entering the development. However, they did not move far. I am happy to report that this particular homeowner moved a mere mile away, to a nicer, larger single-family house across the street from my wife’s Aunt Jill’s house. Along with a larger domicile, the property naturally has a larger lawn – a much larger lawn. One now populated with no less than EIGHT giant inflatable lawn ornaments! Yes, eight. What was once a relatively-tastefully decorated neighborhood now has a rampaging horde of giant cartoon characters greeting residents and visitors alike. From what I hear, the neighbors would prefer an invasion of Crips over what now dominates the neighborhood landscape.

[Currently Listening: Olivia Olson – “All I Want For Christmas Is You”]