Agreed. However, I have yet to see anybody who has made inflatable Christmas decorations “work” (in the aesthetic sense). I don’t how expensive these items are but they always look cheap. Also, they remind me of enormous beach-balls so they seem seasonally out-of-place.
My new favorite is the one yard in our neighborhood where Santa is presenting a gift to the Baby Jesus. You know, He got frankencense, myrrh, gold, and a jack-in-the-box for his birthday.
We have one house that usually goes all out for Christmas - the Grinch, snowglobes, a huge nativity scene, lights everywhere, etc., but this year, they haven’t done a thing. I’m thinking about sending a thank you note.
E.
In my home town, shortly before I moved, a franchise of a megahype-loving large-city car dealership moved into town, and began to run the typical, “Our prices are so law, we’ve gone CRA-A-AZY!!” type ads.
Following which, a competitive dealership ran a series of ads that were perfect satires of the big-city franchise’s ads. In place of the fast-talking announcer, they had their sales manager calmly and in a low-key voice explain why one should shop their dealership, while behind him someone dressed in (a) a bunny suit wearing (b) a pink vest with yellow polka dots and (c) a pink derby hat walked back and forth picketing the dealership for discriminating against supposedly-insane hard-sell car dealership characters. (You had to see the two sets of ads to get the full effect of this, but I trust the description gives you a sense of the ironic humor involved.)
I’m sure any daughter of Jillgat’s would not be “just decorative”! 
Dunnow, it’s been three years and I still haven’t recovered from my first sight of a string-of-LEDs deer-pulled sledge, with additional deer.
Please note that it was in the tropical-flower-edged lawn in front of a hotel, in a location where people have never seen snow outside the TV. Of course, they also had those fake stone dwarves…
Back up the amazement truck, Mr. Matt…the spinning snowglobes down here in IL are around $180!
-Cem
Sorry, but when LED bulbs use 100 to 175 times less electricity (a C9 bulb is 9 watts, and according to this site a single LED bulb takes something like .05 watts, or 1/20th of a watt) and never burn out, then it just makes sense all around to use them. (If only they could stop them from flickering!)
My neighbor had an inflatable Homer Simpson dressed as Santa in his yard. I kind of liked that one. It made me smile whenever I saw it.
Someone killed it. I saw it yesterday laying in the yard in a dispritied heap.
I wanted to be the first to mention how stupid a front lawn looks with a collection of deflated lawn displays laying all over it all day, like the Wicked Witch of the West had been hosting a family reunion that ended tragically when the automatic sprinkler system went off just as the party was breaking up. But I appear to have missed the boat.
Instead, I will amuse myself with thoughts of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins strolling down the street one snowy Christmas evening, and coming upon one of these examples of Engineering at its finest (per our friend if6was9). I can see Neil stopping and gazing in wonder at Winnie-the-Pooh emerging from a pot of “Hunny”, scratching his head in incomprehension, and saying, “Damn, Buzz. Lookit that, Michael. What’ll they think of next?”
Those inflatable things scare the shit out of my dog; the noise they make is obnoxious. I really dislike them myself, but I wouldn’t wish harm on them. But it is funny when they’re deflated in the yard (which also scares my dog, but she’s skittish like that).
This is the first year I’ve had the dog so I’ve been walking around the neighborhoods a lot more. A lot of really nice decorations, but I just don’t understand the halfhearted efforts. Like a string in one bush and cluster in the one next to it, except half of them blink but not all of them. Or those awful rope lights, those are so horrible.
I do like the lights, if not the sentiment, so I’ll take the spirit of the season even if it comes with some really tacky attempts.
Nah - it just isn’t inflated right now. They plug in and up pops Homer again.
Yeah, they’re ugly and tacky and a symbol of the commercialism of Christmas and markers for those whose tastes aren’t as refined as yours, but mostly kids love them. I can’t imagine too many people with no children (or empty nesters, unless it’s for the neighborhood kids) sitting around and thinking about how their lives are empty without a $100 inflatable cartoon character on their front yard.
Believe me, if it weren’t for the holiday indulgences we allow kids, I wouldn’t have a 6 ft. fake tree in my window decorated with red and blue blinking lights and Superman ornaments, finished with a penguin tree skirt (that is, by the way, totally unnecessary due to the nonviable nature of said tree).
How about an inflatable cave, with an inflatable animated rock rolling aside, and an inflatable Jesus to emerge, while inflatable Roman Soldiers fall back in terror?
Coming Easter 2007, to a Wal*Mart near you.
How’s he going to say inflated with those holes in his hands and feet?
O Come, All Ye Faithful
matt, I saw one of those Santa things at Wallyworld, with Santa on the down stroke. It looked like Rudolph was saying “Get your fat, cookie eating ass down that chimney!”
This just in:
A video on MSN from a hidden camera, filming some guys killing inflatable Frosty with screwdrivers. Not sure if this link gives you the whole news segment, but if so, keep watching. It’s worth it.
http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=fabb4729-2eb4-4776-9a26-a8fb2cfda5ad&f=06/64&fg=email
If you even find yourself a block south of Jerusalem Avenue in Wantagh, on a street called Hawthorne Drive North, you’ll see 32 Christmas inflatables squeezed onto a front yard no bigger thn 60’ wide and 25’ deep. I have no idea how the mailman - or anyone visiting, even finds the front door.
It’s once the Jesus pops out, that the valves in his hands and feet will open (the deluxe model will have red plastic ribbons surounding the holes, for a realistic-looking blood spray), and when it does deflate, the cycle will begin again.
Get on what bus? Oh, this bus here, with the driver wearing a name tag that says “Virgil”?
No, no, wrong bus, kd99. Here comes the one for you… the handbasket.
No, I think it’s really dead. For about two weeks it stood, bringing the neighborhood holiday cheer, but now it’s stayed in a deflated puddle of latex for two or three days.
Ah. There’s nothing sadder than a flaccid Homer.
kd99 - honey, I have a nameplate on my seat already.