So, as a corollary to my other holiday decorating thread, what holiday decorations do you hate?
Working off the prevailing Christmas majority, a lot of mine are newish…as I noted in the other thread, my holiday decorating style is pretty old-fashioned. That’s largely because I don’t like modern decorating elements that have shown up in the last 20 years or so. Like icicle lights. I can’t explain why I don’t like them…my own decorating style can be pretty sloppy-looking and that’s part of its charm, to me. So it’s not that they’re sloppy-looking. I just don’t like them at all.
I also don’t care for rope lights. It’s possible that the common element is the ease with which you can decorate with both of these type of lights, which makes for a careless, hang 'em anywhere attitude toward the decorating. Don’t know.
I’ve heard that aluminum trees are making a comeback. This does not fill me with joy. I have nothing against artificial trees, but I think they should at least attempt to look like a “real” tree. Otherwise you end up with people who think a light rope spiralled around a pole is a socially acceptable Christmas tree.
I HATE inflatables. Three-quarters of the time, the people who have this huge blow-up monstrosity have a front yard that barely has the frontage to actually HOLD the damn thing, and half of THOSE end up looking like Santa tried to parachute onto your roof and had a fatal miss…red fur suits, reindeer and what looks like a giant parachute, just flattened to the ground as far as the eye can see.
Not to the point of hate, but I’m not fond of mechanicals for household use. I enjoy a nodding reindeer, a hammering elf, or a snoring Santa in the mall as much as anyone, but they just don’t look right for home use. My mother was starting in this direction when I left for college, but luckily never went too far into it. I think she has about 3 mechanical units that she never drags out anymore.
Anyway, what’s YOUR least favorite holiday decorating element(s)?
I always think of that episode of Roseanne where they were told by the neighborhood association what kind of decorations they could put up, and they retaliated by putting up the biggest, tackiest, ugliest lights and sculptures you can imagine! (see: Harriet Carter catalog for drunken Santas falling off the roof, plastic flowers, ‘holiday’ toilet seat covers, and Santa shower curtains). See also: http://uglychristmaslights.com
Those inflatable things are a true eyesore plaguing the land. When we grown adults drive home through this development we make a game of finger-shooting them (wishing we had a BB gun). The house across the street had been lit up for years with a National Lampoon Christmas Vacation multi-colored display that lit up our living room even with the blinds closed. We only put up tacky half-lit window light sculptures and call it a day…And with those rope lights - what the heck is it with people who wind them about half way up a tree and just leave it? As if they said, 'well, that’s as far as it goes, twice around the lower branches - ah, the hell with it!"
I don’t mind any kind of light. My neighborhood decorates insanely & most people are pretty tasteful. (Lots of old houses.) Some people outline every architectural detail with very neat, elegant white lights. Others apparently have a few beers, then plug all the lights they own into a string & toss them over the shrubbery. All look fine to me. (My contribution is usually pretty minimal.)
But I hate the mechanical & inflatable options. Gross & vulgar! (And I don’t even see aluminum trees as vulgar.)
Category left out: Ornaments that make noise! Ho Ho Ho’s or tinny Xmas Carols going all night inspire the urge to kill…
I didn’t like the silvered/aluminum trees when they first came out and I like them even less now. Add one of those dumb color wheels below it and I may just be inspired to violence. Forget handguns ---- those are the one thing I would want to see totally banned.
I have mixed feelings about these. If it’s one that annoys supervenusfreak, I’ll keep touching it to make it play all the way through the season (reminds me to find the stuffed caribou that plays “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”).
If it’s one that annoys ME, well…that’s different!
I only voted for icicle lights, and really only because most people that I see using them are the people who do a really sloppy job putting up lights and it makes those type of lights look really messy and crappy.
I just REALLY like Christmas lights and displays. People definitely go overboard with the inflatables and mechanicals, but I dunno, I still like them. Tomorrow some friends and I are going to go drive and look at lights; I hope a lot of people have decorated.
I do really prefer well-done light displays. I was out of town last weekend and a grocery store there did a fantastic job of lighting the building and the trees surrounding it. Very professionally done and looked wonderful. But not everyone is talented at decorating or has the money to hire someone like that store obviously did.
I even think aluminum trees have their place. We have a big, full 7.5 fake green tree with lots of lights, and it’s great. But if my house was really modern or something, maybe an aluminum tree would look really cool in it. I had a mini one in my apartment a few years ago with white lights and tiny blue/teal ornaments and it was really cute.
Rope lights make me think of summer time. I don’t see many around here this time of year. I see them more roped around boats/outdoor bars and stuff in the summer.
Inflatables. My mother hates them too, she has fantasies of going on inflatable-shooting rampages with a BB gun.
They’re just so boring and they don’t look cool or entertaining, and half the time they sit at an angle, or the people who have them leave them deflated half the time, so they look even worse.
Or, it’s the only decoration they have. I always wonder why someone would spend upwards of $100 if they’re only going to have one decoration. Why not get a bunch of things that look good instead? $100 can go a pretty long way on decorations if you don’t spend it on a blow-up doll.
All the other stuff on the list can look good if done well, IMO. I love my dad’s old aluminum tree, with all it’s ancient decorations and light wheel.
Those freakin’ inflatables always make me wish Santa would bring me a dart gun for Christmas! Gah. Not only are they ugly, tacky eyesores, but it seems like most people who have them, have them as their only decoration (as mentioned upthread) and have way too many for the area they have allotted to them. For instance, in a “standard” front yard (which is, what, a quarter-acre or less?), there will be four or five of those monstrosities.
OMG, maybe they have sex and reproduce while we’re not looking! :eek:
The inflatables are the worst. The people across the street from us* have a bunch of them, and they’re just so tacky. During the day they are deflated and they just look like Santa’s used condoms.
I think the main reason I hate them is they’re just so lazy. Just blow them up and stick them on your lawn. That’s not decorating, people. We know everybody’s busy and it takes time to hang up lights, but just dumping balloons on grass is bullshit. If you like or don’t like icicle lights is a matter of taste, but inflatable snowmen aren’t even trying.
Inflatables and icicle lights are the worst for me…the inflatables for reasons already mentioned, and the icicle lights because they really look sloppy most of the time.
I loathe any decoration that plays music, sings, or speaks. I hate it more if it plays a snippet of a Christmas song I know, forcing me to endure the dreaded holiday earworm.
edited to add:
I should have read the thread before responding. For this, I hate you and all your evil kindred.
You forgot “Creepy looking Santa Claus dolls that my mother-in-law buys on sale at second-rate department stores and gives me every Christmas season and I have to display in a prominent place or risk mother-in-law wrath” as an option, so I got nothing.
I don’t hate any one kind of decoration. I hate inconsistent decorating. Like if you have a bunch of lights everywhere, and only one strand that blinks. Or all blue lights, and one multi-colored strand. Drives. Me. Crazy.
