Posted on 12/22/2006 4:11:03 AM PST by King of Florida
HOLTSVILLE, N.Y., Dec. 19 — On a recent quiet afternoon, with few witnesses around, Homer Simpson, Santa Claus and a penguin perched on an igloo suddenly appeared here on the Long Island landscape as if from nowhere, unfolding slowly like Frankenstein monsters lurching to life on the table. As Homer’s extremities reached full size, his pink nylon fist puffed into Mr. Snow Man’s face — an involuntary attack, to be sure. Bop.
Such is the phantasmagoric, Disney-esque experience of the new Christmas custom sweeping the suburbs.
Whatever else Christmas in America means — the birth of Jesus, holly wreaths, the Chipmunks, cultural tension — it now also includes these gargantuan, inflatable outdoor decorations, called “Airblowns” by their chief manufacturer.
They have been around for a while, but mark 2006 as the year these decorations became a full-blown fixture in the pantheon of holiday traditions — and, as is the holiday tradition, the subject of a rift.
Not quite a culture war. Call it an intramural disagreement among the Christmas crazed.
“Appalling,” Catherine Bruckner, a traditionalist who decorates only in holly and evergreen, sneered as she stopped her car in front of an inflated Santa playing poker with two shrewd-eyed reindeer in a menagerie totaling two dozen figures. “It’s bad enough to see those things on Halloween. At Christmas, they rise to a level of tackiness that is horrible.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My daughter calls that the "hefty trash bag".
The tree died in march, so it's just a bunch of dead limbs (many of which will break off it you stare at them).
It made it difficult to decorate, and I gave up after only 3000 lights (last year it had more than 4000 lights, and they were in a horizontal pattern (that's in the 2005 folder at the picture site).
After christmas the carcass is being removed. I've got to make some new tree purchases this year.
I've taken my own very similar shots, from back in the day - must be tucked in some shoebox somewhere. I added a new one at the zoo recently by posing myself in from of an Aboriginal painting so it looked like I had a 4ft afro.
The little lady had some sour-puss look on her face when she took my pic. That made my smile even bigger - her pretending to be unamused and all.
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