Have you decked your halls and hung your stockings? Are you shopped, wrapped and ready?
Me neither. But our household interior has been sufficiently decorated – including the hacked-down Douglas Fir that now stands shiningly adorned in the corner of the living room – and now it’s time to tackle the outdoor display.
For us, a couple mechanical deer, colorful poly-plastic Christmas packages and flickering window candles mark the extent of our visible-to-the-public decorating.
Some of my neighbors, however, do not celebrate the season in such an understated manner.
They live in your neighborhood, too – the out of control Griswold types whose front yards look as if the Wal-Mart Seasonal Center had exploded there.
Inflatable snowmen and Santas and reindeer and cartoon characters and floodlights and farm animals and snow globes as big as Barry Bonds’ head – if there is to be an extended War on Christmas, let’s start strafing exterior tackiness run amok.
Found recently on the Ugly Christmas Lights website were displays featuring a life-size Jesus wired to a tree; 20-yards worth of a football field with a goalpost; and a black-light house that may cause flashbacks in fans of Pink Floyd.
At Tacky Light Tour you can vote for the most garish displays while learning fun little facts about the gross overstatements (Did you know that the Liquori family has over 20,000 lights and 36 inflatables in their display?).
If you, however, are one of those who wants your abode to look like the North Pole on steroids, the Griswold Home website will offer you all the tips and information you need to have a yard filled with ‘extreme holiday lighting.”
And being from Baltimore, we know a little something about tacky Christmas lights – we have a whole neighborhood that uses enough electricity to power a Third World country.
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If you want to find out where Tackylights.com got the idea from, information about the history of Richmond Virginia's Tacky Xmas Decoration and Grand Highly Illuminated House Tour is at tackyxmas.com
i know of a balcony that has over 20,000 lights. big deal. it's computerized also. (someplace in falls church, virginia)
forgot to add, i believe the balcony was featured in the metro section of the washington post a couple of years back. ( i could be wrong )
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