Tacky Christmas Lights

As a kid, we would drive around the town (it was a pretty small town) and look at everyone's Christmas decorations. It was a fun time. Now that I live in the big city, I have even more opportunity to go.

But I'm not looking for the same thing anymore.

Today, I seem to be the most amused at tacky light displays. There are two kinds that appeal to me most.

1. The house that looks like Santa threw up all over it. These people can't get enough lights, plastic figurines, and inflatable snow globes in their yard. There is a house like this very near my house. It's become a tradition to walk by and laugh at it. Sometimes, there Santa and a snowman help to adore baby Jesus. I like to count the Santa figurines. This house near mine has at least a dozen. You can tell when you are approaching, because the glow can be seen for a couple of blocks.

2. The half-assed approach. This is when you put a few strings of lights out, but one section of one line is blinking. I am highly amused to see one part of any light display blinking. Even better is when there are multiple sections blinking at totally different speeds. You wonder why people want their houses to look like this.

Now that I've ragged on "other" homes for their decorations, I'll confess that our house is not one that will make people drive out of their way. We have a string of lights along the top eve of the house. There is a smaller eve just above the door that also have a string of lights. That's it. Not much. I am also noticing that the second string of lights isn't hanging very straight, but I don't seem to want to do anything to fix it.

Of course, if I wanted to be REALLY creative, I would make a cool display like this: