Christmas Decorations

Time to deck the halls, or in this case of us hillbillies, the porch, front lawn, roof, driveway, garden, and mailbox. Its not that difficult, most of us have the lights still up from last year. I don't mind folks who leave their Christmas lights up all year, but the ones who turn them on every night til Daylight Savings Time begins are kind of annoying. Personally, I have an excuse for overdoing it. I have children. Blame it on the kids, bless their hearts, they enjoy the decorations so.

There is one problem. Normally, I would put my lights up sometime during Thanksgiving weekend. This year, I bought two boxes of new lights (like I don't have enough old lights, yeah) and put them somewhere safe. So safe that I cannot find them. I have turned the house upside down, but they are MIA. I'm sure they will show up around April.

Some houses around here would take your breath away. Inflatables bigger than the house. Scenes projected on clapboard, or even brick! And there's that perennial Yuletide abomination, the Bethlehem stable with Santa and his reindeer on the roof. I'd take a picture, but I don't want to even look at them.

Alek Komarnitsky gained fame a few years ago with his website that allowed surfers to control his Christmas lights. Turns out that was a hoax, and he gained more fame after the revelation. Here's the story. And here's his Christmas website.

Check out this ultra-lighted house in Monte Sereno, California, including a 360 panorama.

Planet Christmas has a gallery of overlighted homes.

Houseblinger is a site to see the most decorated houses of England.

Read about Richmond, Virginia's Tacky Xmas Decoration Contest and Grand Highly Illuminated House Tour. This site also has links to other decoration nightmares.

A collection of ugly decorations.

Here's a site that will help you become your neighborhood Clark Griswold. But watch out for your Home Owner's Association!

I also found this funny story about one man's Clark Griswold experience.

However, for sheer wattage, I think this guy won.

The Blondes

There were two blondes who went deep into the frozen woods searching for a Christmas tree. After hours of subzero temperatures a few close calls with hungry wolves, one blonde turned to the other and said, "I'm
chopping down the next tree I see. I don't care whether it's decorated or not!"

Things Not To Say When Hanging Lights

"Up a little higher. You can reach it. Go on, try."

"What the hell do you do to these lights when you put them away every year? Tie them in knot?"

"Come away from that aluminum ladder, kids. I'm going to fry that sucker."

"If you're not going to do it right, don't do it at all. Don't just throw them on, like you do the icicles. You're worse than your father."

"You've got the whole thing on the tree upside-down. The electric pluggee thing should be down here at the bottom, not up at the top."

"I don't care if you have found another two strings, I'm done!"

"You've just wound 'em around and around - I thought we agreed it shouldn't look like a spiral this year?"

"Give me that!"

"Have you been drinking?"

"Where's the cat?"

But none can compare to the lights of Wizards of Winter, synchronized to the music of the Trans Siberian Orchestra. This is the home of Carson Williams of Mason, Ohio. He assures in this interview that us he did NOT edit the video. The display was computer-synchronized and the music was broadcast on an FM frequency. He's doing it again this year, but it will cost you $15 a carload to see it live. Or you could watch this video. Instructions on how to do this yourself can be found here.

Along the same lines, I found three versions of Christmas lights synched to the song Carol of the Bells, here, here, and here. 

Thought for today: Nothing succeeds like excess.

This post originally appeared on December 2, 2005. So I'm lazy! Sue me!

humor links Christmas funny Christmas lights decorations

Comments

[Skunkfeathers]

LOL...no kids hyar, and since the pet rock is vacationing in Japan this season, no lights ;-)

[Ed]

it was new to me. Good post, thanks.

[deriter]

New to me too. Loved it!!

[Andrew]

We go for the "one string of lights, leave them up all year, plug them in the day after Thanksgiving" approach. Seems to work pretty well.

[Senor]

Christmas decorations are so much fun. I have lawn ornaments cabled to a tree so the thugs can't steal them. It's so much fun to watch them try though.

[jules]

I loved the "Christmas injury" picture...what a cool idea. Too bad she had to take it down.

[Walter]

Ha ha, very good! I like your style, you really do an exceptional job of gathering these little treasures, and combining them all together in a most pleasing format.

[Dougall]

Very ironic! The post about the house with a million Christmas lights follows closely after the video about global warming, (and now there are copycats). How many times did your parents tell you not to leave a light on when you left a room, then every Christmas they put up enough lights to triple the electric bill for a month? Why not start a movement for LESS lights? LED lights use less power, but they still use some. The best thing you can do with your lights this year is to leave most of them in the box in the attic. If you are going to put some up, at least go to the hardware store and buy an outdoor rated timer (about $10) and make sure the lights only come on for a couple of hours per night.

By the way, I posted on another forum recently where everyone was going crazy about a new electric car, to remember that electricity doesn't just appear - it is generated, often by coal fired plants. In other words, you are driving a COAL powered car.