Like a Christmas Circus

Ok. So what's the deal with all these inflatable lawn decorations the last few years. One or two people decided to get them in like 2005 and now it seems like everyone is required to have at least 3 of them in front of their house no matter how small the yard. I completely don't get it. To say nothing of the environmental implications of wasting that much electricity blowing air into your inflata-Santa, these things are just ridiculous looking. Especially when you've got multiples. You may as well just get a bouncy-castle and put it in front of your house for a month...at least then the neighborhood kids could have some fun. Between that and the ridiculous multi-colored, sometimes seizure-inducing lights (post on that coming soon), it sorta looks like the circus is in town. Now all we need is piped in music everywhere......oh, wait....that's happening too. In every store and public building across the land.

Before you all start thinking I'm anti-Christmas, I'm not. I'm just beginning to see the merits to my father's decision to be the only house on the block without lights all over it.

To illustrate my point, here are a few pictures from yesterday's (unsuccessful--so far) excursion to find something to create my Christmas masterpiece.

To start with. We go back to the inflatables. Have you seen these things during the day when people turn off the blowers? They just look sad. It's bound to give kids Christmas nightmares. I call this one "Billy, Santa had a hard Saturday night".

Then, you've got the stores. Regrettably, the Home Depot in Eagan, MN didn't have nearly the inflata-land that both the Home Depot and the Lowes in Milwaukee, WI did, but the following photos will have to suffice.

(What you can't see on this low quality cell phone photo are that this is a Santa riding in an airplane and that the propellers on the plane are actually spinning around)

And....just for added fun, here's a few more cute holiday displays from the Home Depot.

(They had a WHOLE display in front of the store of these pre-decorated Charlie Brown trees. Probably not the way to convince people that you have quality trees that they want to buy. Just saying.)

(Just so you know.....these are snow blowers. They blow snow. See, we've put simulated polyester snow out the tops of them so you know that. Just in case you didn't know from the name snow blower.)