Evil,
a friend of mine sent me a parachute material Santa Claus holding onto what looks like a trapeze. He is wrapped in Christmas lights. There is a battery pack on him, and it looks like he fell off the gutters, wrapped in the lights (which match ours).
Where did you get the dummy? Isn’t it heavy?
I have a lovely (fake) tree and ornaments galore but I’m not feeling moved to pull it, or the other decorations, out this year. It’s just me and the cats, so that might have something to do with it. Normally, I go to England for Christmas but this year I can’t, due to work. So nothing will go up unless I get really motivated for myself.
Arrgh though, the cats really LOVE the tree with lights on it. It’s so cute to watch them claim territory under it that I may have to put it up. I’ll feel guilty otherwise.
Our dog always used to lie down under the tree, next to the Manger scene after we put the Baby Jesus in…no one could go near that Nativity if Dukie was around…
This might be useful for those in a tiny space or that don’t like to decorate - we’ve been using little thumb tacks to hang decorations from the ceiling instead of decorating our tiny apartment. They very in length and color and look really pretty when they are all up.
Plus they stay out of the way and don’t take up any space. I have a little hanger that hangs lower over a small table, and we make some form the shape of a tree and there the presents get piled.
I know it’s not traditional, but it makes good use of space even with a lower ceiling and looks nice without being a pain.
Growing up (in Tucson, AZ) my godmother and her partner always hung a tumbleweed from the ceiling and decorated it. It was pretty cool.
I hate this idea. There was a person who used to do something similar near where I used to live. He hung a dummy out of his barn which looked like it fell out a window and was hanging on to the edge. And people driving by (including me) would slam on our brakes as we were driving by because at first glance we thought a real person was in trouble. With a second look, we’d realize it was just a dummy and drive on. But this fake emergency scene was annoying as hell.
We haven’t decorated outside yet and most likely wont this year.
Inside:
We have a 6.5-7’ fake tree that is prelit and actually looks really nice. It goes right next to the attic stairs because going up the stairs is the only way to decorate the top without getting a ladder.
We drape blue and white snowflake shaped lights over the fireplace. The wood beam that goes across the TV area will be wrapped with multicolored lights. The train set will go in the loft, right next to the edge so when it goes around in its circle, you can see it from the living room.
That’s about it.
Mom always goes nuts with the Hannukah decorations. Greeting cards taped everywhere. Tinsel everywhere. Stuffed Judah Macabee with sword and shield- he looks like a militant Jewish Cabbage Patch Kid. Big translucent plastic dreidels. This indescribable tinsel bouquet of gold and red and Jewish stars and dreidels hanging from the dining room light. A big electric menorah in the window. A white and blue teddy bear with LED menorah in his tummy posed on living room chair.
Latke Larry- Stuffed audio animatronic doll that sings with the voice of Jerry Stiller (Frank Costanza of Seinfeld).
And it goes on like that.
My own apartment is more or less continually decorated for Halloween- Alien crawling on the ceiling, monsters everywhere.
I think I have decorated twice in 30 years as an adult.
I do have a 16" ceramic tree with the plastic lights that my grandmother made in her kiln (I got ugly ceramics every year for six years, oh joy) and I will put it out on top of the TV cabinet every four or five years and say, “Look, I decorated!” This year it is staying in the closet.
When I had a full time job and owned my own house down in Georgia, I spent about $50 (at Walmart that goes quite a long way) at outdoor lights and decorations, then paid the nieghbor’s college-aged son to hang them for me (I didn’t have a ladder, and he only charged me $75). My house looked pretty good! When we lived in Ohio, we put lights in the trees in the front yard, and some “snowflake lights” down the edge of the driveway, and the animated light-up deer in the island in the front yard (one of the things left over from the above mentioned Walmart trip). We didn’t put lights on the actual house due to the aforementioned lack of a ladder. Everything was on a timer to go off during the day and on at night.
I like decorating for Christmas, and while we may not do it this year, I’m sure we’ll do it in the future, probably more often than not.
We walked through the neighborhood yesterday, looking at people’s yard displays. One of our neighbors always puts out this giant Winnie the Pooh inflatable, with Pooh holding a Christmas stocking in his lap, and my husband chanted, “In days of old when knights were bold and condoms weren’t invented, they’d wrap a sock around their cock and babies were prevented.” Just about killed me. 
We put up a bunch of lights, but our house still lacks that certain something. We were discussing adding some sort of Christmas character outdoors, but wanted something original, as everything imaginable is already represented in someone else’s yard. Finally, I hit upon the idea of making our own Mr. Hankey! Only problem is, I’m pretty sure someone would steal it. My husband came up with a simple solution: Make a real Mr. Hankey. Silly me, I’d been thinking of plywood! I’d be downright disappointed if we made a real one and it didn’t get stolen.