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#1
12-10-1999, 02:58 PM
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There is an elderly couple who live on my street, Nonie and Oscar. Every year since they retired the Christmas Nativity scene they set up on their yard gets more
and more intricate. The manger features two huge styrofoam snowmen wielding candy canes guard like at the entrance, once inside the manger the first thing you'll notice is the unorthodox choice of the baby Jesus (most depiction's of christ don't include a big smiley face and red yarn hair). This is because the baby Jesus originally included in the nativity set was swiped years ago by some neiborhood kids who left only his broken plaster penis in his place. So a Strawberry Shortcake doll has been substituted in the manger, and is doted over by Mary, Joseph, and a plastic gingerbread man. Nonie and Oscar got the life-sized plaster figures of Mary, Joseph and the Wise Men on a trip to Tijuana (I suspect it was a toss-up between these or the little peeing boy birdbath). All the figures came painted in eye shocking Day-Glo colors. Mary wears an electric blue robe, the wise men are clad in hot pink, neon magenta, and psychedelic purple (mercifully these have faded to less vision damaging hues over the years). One point of contention was the black Wise Man. Originally his face was painted glossy midnight black with candy apple red lips and bright white skyward rolled eyes. This didn't go over well with some of our more politically correct neibors, who threatened to go to the city council. In protest Oscar painted him lime green with purple lips and he remains that way today. Because of a lack of room in the mobile home the original manger animals were left of the side of the interstate. In their place stand a herd of plastic reindeer, a concrete Eeore the donkey (from Winnie the Pooh) a flock of pink plastic flamingoes, a ceramic toad, and most inexplicably, a large paper mache' dinosaur. Last year somebody rearranged two of the plastic reindeer in the "doggy style" position. Oscar thought it was the funniest thing ever and it took a boot thrown at him by Nonie to make him change it back. I've counted seven Santa Clauses (most are hollow plastic with light bulbs inside). Three on the roof of the house, one on top of the manger, one as an unofficial fourth Wise Man, one that seems to be doing something rude to a garden gnome, and a gyrating motorized electric one which short circuited in the sprinklers (it used to go "Ho, Ho, Ho!", now it goes " Heewoorah, Hwoorah, Heeewoooorah,!!!"). The rest of the lawn is a tangle of blinking, mismatched lights and features a snow man and woman made out of tumbleweeds stacked three high and spray painted white. Ironically, if you were to go out and PURPOSELY try to make the ugliest, tackiest, most garish Christmas scene on Earth you couldn't touch this display, and Nonie and Oscar don't view all this as tacky in the least. 
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#2
12-10-1999, 03:02 PM
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For the third year in a row, my neighbor has set up a herd of brighly lighted wire frame reindeer in his front yard. Each year, I have resisted the urge to put up a brightly lighted wire frame hunter with a rifle pointed at the reindeer.
One of these years I'm going to do it. Anyone know where I can get hunter's orange christmas lights?
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#3
12-10-1999, 03:04 PM
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Oh yuck.
Last week I asked my bus buddies (all women) if they knew the people in our town with what I considered to be one of the tackiest Christmas displays ever until I read about Nonie and Oscar's. "Oh it's just so beautiful," one of the ladies said. "Isn't it just great the way some people go 'all out' this time of year?" chimed in another. Gag me with a shepherd.
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#4
12-10-1999, 03:06 PM
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My folks are recently retired and lately my mom has developed a pathological interest in crafts. The christmas decorations haven't gone overboard yet but I predict their place turing into a cross between Pee Wee's Playhouse and Old MacDonald's farm. The windmill will be the first warning sign.
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#7
12-10-1999, 03:19 PM
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Inky - what a great description! I can actually visualize the scene (not necessarily a good thing). Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I have seen some Christmas light displays that were truly spectacular, while others are truly spectacles. But you gotta admire the sheer tenacity of those folks, they never give up.
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#8
12-10-1999, 03:36 PM
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Inky, I'll admit that you have posted the best descriptions that I've seen on the SDMB.
That Christmas display needs to be declared a national treasure. ------------------ Quand les talons claquent, l'esprit se vide. Maréchal Lyautey
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#10
12-10-1999, 03:59 PM
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Inky, all I can say is that I'm glad I didn't read your post at work. Damn, that was funny.
------------------ Some drink at the fountain of knowledge...others just gargle.
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#11
12-10-1999, 04:09 PM
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One of our neighbors goes overboard too. His highlight was a real huge bright yellow Caddillac Convertible sitting in his front yard with a life sized Santa sitting in the driver seat and reindeer leading it. Also among the coated colored light house (not and inch without some form of green, red, or blue) is a lifesized natvity scene with manniquins dressed up in full regalia.
I think he may be using casts of them due to the fact that a few neighborhood pranksters took hold of the nativity scene one night a few years back and positioned all the people like they were playing hockey (wise men shooting with shepards crooks, Mary protecting the goal (the manger) with a real hockey stick and the baby as a hockey puck. Ain't naming names anytime soon. ------------------ I know that I have put you through hell, and I know that I have been one rough pecker. But from here on, you are all in my cool book.- Seth Gecko From Dusk Till Dawn
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#12
12-10-1999, 06:19 PM
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Inky... your decription has got to be one of the best I have heard yet!
Athena...I would gladly strip the ones I have off my multicolored line and donate them to you just for the comic relief. I spit coffee all over my screen when I read your post! Gotta love ppl with a sense of humor ------------------ "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing, does the painter do good things." --Edgar Degas
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#13
12-10-1999, 09:59 PM
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Inky, you get the Wordsmith Forge award! Especially in the more Nebulous Garish category. First with the candy, & now here...
As for Nonie and Oscar, well, they just put the Fer Crissakes back into Christmas; and ain't that what it's all about in the US of Transmogrifying A ? It sounds like they have come to grips with the true spirit of celebration much better than any of the tired old here- we- go- again stereotypes have been. At any rate, I'll bet their Heaven is a lot more exciting!
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#14
12-11-1999, 01:08 AM
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Inky!
You've found your calling in life. Please, please, take a picture. Create the Tacky Christmas website. You'll be famous! You'll be popular!! You'll be Christmas's answer to Weird Al!!! On a side note: You've got a couple named Nonie and Oscar who live in a trailer. Of course their Christmas display is tacky, it'd have to be. Peace.
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#15
12-11-1999, 02:23 AM
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moriah,
Your absolutly right. I WILL put up a "tacky Nativity" web page! What a great idea. At the very least I'll post a photo here. Incidently, they don't live in a trailer. I ment to say it was a "Winnebago" they took to Tijuana. Now it rusts unused in their side yard. Inky
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#21
06-24-2001, 08:15 PM
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There is a nativity scene (displayed, I think, with the use of town funds-- I live in the Bible belt) I saw that wasn't that tacky, as far as it goes. Mary, Joe, and Jay were all there, plus the Magi. However, guess who was looking on in adoration, closer than all the aforementioned? The only one who was close enough to touch the manger was damned SANTA CLAUS. He was peering at the crib looking like he was formulating a plan of usurpation. Seems to have worked.
I mean, what the hell. Seriously. Give me a break. I know that Santa Claus-> St. Nicholas , pious beatified etc. but just because one throws money at hos waiting at a pawn shop and later becomes a mythic figure who pimps flying mammals around the world and commits yearly innumerable counts of unlawful entry DOES NOT earn one face time with the Principals of one of the Big Five Organized. Sheesh.
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#22
06-24-2001, 10:13 PM
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Quote:
__________________
Don't look back: it's just whiskey under the bridge
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#23
12-04-2001, 01:15 PM
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On a hot August day years ago, when I was heading northbound out of Miami, I was passed by a middle-aged Cuban guy going about 75 mph... with a nativity scene glued to his fuzzbuster. I nearly drove off the road, I was laughing so hard.
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#24
12-04-2001, 03:40 PM
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Just passed this one on the way back from the doctor's office: front yard Nativity scene, but done with 3-foot tall statues of children, ŕ la wide-eyed "Precious Moments". Mary looks to be about four-years-old, and the sheep look just beyond fetal stage.
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#25
12-05-2001, 12:01 PM
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".....and the Baby Jesus will be played by a 40 watt bulb."
Doonesbury-G.B. Trudeau
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#26
12-05-2001, 12:46 PM
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Inky, even though you're not in Missouri and the vehicle isn't a trailer, you should send a pic to the Missouri Trailer Trash website. I bet this display will make it into the non-Missouri pics.
__________________
Why become a fourth Yeti?
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#28
12-16-2002, 05:34 PM
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Laughing out loud, at work.
Sometimes I think people know it's tacky, but don't admit, and they "just go with it." Adding more and more each year. Kind of an in joke between Nonie and Oscar. Not wanting to change the "doggie style" reindeer says they're not taking it too seriously on any level. Carry on, Nonie and Oscar.
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