The nightmare before Xmas

This seizure-inducing Christmas light show, via the English Guy, reminds me that my parents just moved across the street from a house whose owner will doubtless consider it his duty to light up the night for Christmas. For Halloween all his trees and bushes were covered in orange lights. I believe there was a lawn ornament, too, but I can't recall what it was; possibly because I'm still recovering from the two-storey-high inflatable turkey that adorned his front yard for Thanksgiving. I expect he was outside the first thing Friday morning with strings of Christmas cheer to festoon around the premises.

Here's a slideshow of the 700 block on 34th Street in Baltimore, where every year, every house gets decorated.

Robbo the Llama Butcher takes a rather dim view of all that illumination in his post "Rigidly Hidebound Llama Christmas Decorating Tips."

Exterior lights - bad. Yard ornaments of any kind, including the eight foot tall illuminated blow-up Snoopy on display three doors up from us - worse. Nativities, sleighs and/or reindeer either on the grass or the roof - wrong, wrong wrong. And if you try to simulate snowfall in any way, shape or form, don't ever come back to this blog again.

In short, all that Griswold Family Christmas stuff is right out. I read about those neighborhoods that pride themselves on their yearly displays and recoil. I read about people who actually drive around to look at such neighborhoods with horror, meanwhile fumbling around for my branding irons so I can stamp a large letter "L" on their foreheads.