It’s post-season enough for me to be unconcerned with raining on anyone’s seasonal celebrational spirit.
You seen those things proliferating in your neighborhood, or is it a particularly LongIslandish thing? Butt-ugly blow-up Santa dolls, Frostie the Snow-dirigible, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reinballoon, and an unheavenly host of supporting plastic air-filled characters with all the charm of an Exxon station’s mascot. Low-end strip-mall aesthetics to evoke the Grinch in anyone with any taste. As god is my witness, I will never criticize gaudy light arrays again.
Someone nearby was caught on video vandalizing a yardful of those things, and the owners and TV new commentators kept expressing disbelief that anyone would be such a Scrooge. I understand perfectly well how hard it is to look upon those without craving the feel of a hatpin between your fingers.
A thousand times yes, ugh I hate those horrific things. And, if possible, they look even more stupid uninflated and flopping about on the lawn in the daytime.
Anyway, I don’t like those inflatables either. They just seem so garish. (Although there was one I came across last year that I liked, especially the way last winter hit us…it was a snowman with some sort of motor that made him shiver, holding a sign that said “Brrrr.”
The funny thing is, I don’t find the light-up molded plastic figurines garish, but maybe it’s because I grew up with them. (And the go-to decorated house in town had quite a few of them.)
I gotta say…there’s a new thing with some sort of laser-light projector that projects what looks like a colored starfield on the front of a house. I kind of like the effect.
Hatpins or BB guns won’t do much good. They leak anyway; that’s why they have those blowers continually inflating them. One or two small holes wouldn’t make much difference; the blower could still keep up.
We have a fair number on our block. Not my style but they don’t make noise or even light up, so I don’t complain.
I admit a few times they’ve freaked out the dog. We live in the city with tiny front lawns, decor items get pretty close to the sidewalk. So sometimes we go for a walk on a windy day and Mr Frosty gets all up in his grill.
I’ll admit, I like them. I like the inflatable* snowglobes as well.
But, as with all things, in moderation. I think the inflatables look better than lighted wireframe reindeer, because from some angles they just look like a jumble of light. At least with an inflatable you know what the thing is supposed to be.
I’ve seen those star field projectors for the first time this year. They look pretty good.
*I like the “infaltable” ones as well. And “mulit-colored” dust. Gotta pay more attention to typos in thread titles.
Worse than tacky is when they are creeeeepyyyyy. We had an inflatable snowman down the street, right in the center of our front view, that was up and on 24/7 for three weeks. In the day it was merely tacky; at night all you could see was this weird Cheshire-snowman face, in animated LEDs, grinning, winking and gawping. It really did give me chills when I went out at night to get something, like a demon leering at me from the woods.
But then… we have a hard-frame snowman with colored LEDs that are about twice too bright. I keep meaning to make a voltage-reducer for it, but for now everyone in the house loves the “nuclear snowman.” At least it’s not (otherwise) creepy…
I’m in Queens, so pretty much LonGuyland lite, but yeah, we have them.
The funniest one I ever saw, was outside a pub-type bar, where they serve food, etc. It was a Santa enjoying milk & cookies in a big easy chair, but, when it started to deflate (which was daily) it would slump and pretty much look like Santa passed out drunk.
This year a house I regularly drive past had not one, but two deflated Santas lying face down side by side between two large 2d plywood angels blowing trumpets. I told my wife they must be angels of death.
I do like the giant inflatable turkey (complete with Pilgrim hat) for Thanksgiving. The worst I’ve seen is a pig on a Harley. Nothing says Christmas like an inflatable hog in your yard.
Just rearrange them to re-enact some porn scenes or a little bestiality. Livens up the festive season a bit, wouldn’t you say? It even works with the lighted wireframe wildlife.
We always enjoyed doing that for some of our over-the-top neighbors. The downside to 2000+ SF basements is/was the amount of Xmas yard decorations they can hold. And consumer nature abhors an under-stuffed basement.
Quit making fun of inflatables. It’s fun to go out on Christmas Morn and run around the neighborhood taking pictures of Ol’ Santa and Rudolph and Frosty lying on their faces and then stick the pictures on Facebook and say “Someone had too much eggnog.”
A yard a block away has an inflatable Nascar Santa. It’s supposed to be a waving Santa in a racing car tightly surrounded by a pit crew of elves.
But it never quite inflates properly, and it’s situated on a slope. Santa and his car sag forward onto the elf crew. The resulting effect is that the loyal elves are helplessly trapped under the car, while Santa still waves gayly to the kiddies, unconcerned about maiming his underlings.
Every year we think we’ve seen the last of Nascar Santa, but he was brought out again this last Xmas. Someone ought to retire it and give the poor elves a break.
