The magical wonder

[dannylion]

of the giant inflatable snow globe.

I love those things.

But not enough to buy one of my own. So I have to be content with the occasional serendipitous sighting on someone else's lawn.

What do you look forward to seeing on neighborhood lawns at Christmas?

[Deleted]

No offense to you, Danny, but I don't like inflatable anythings. In my part of town, people vie to see how many of those they can put in one yard.

If you want one, they are usually half-price after Christmas.

I do like how one of my neighbors hangs wreaths from all the windows. It is a huge, two-story house that is sort of antebellum style with large columns. That looks awesome. They usually put a Santa in a sleigh, but instead of cheap Christmas lights, they use a spotlight.

It's very classy.

[dannylion]

Oh, no offense taken at all, SS. I just think it's fun to see Christmas decorations and certainly do appreciate the elegant ones. For some reason, the giant inflatable snow globes just speak to me. I like the way the fan blows the big confetti around. I don't have any family, and my house can't be seen from the street, so I don't decorate for the holidays, but I do enjoy seeing everyone else's decorations, even the kitchy ones.

I grew up in Southern California, and a neighborhood around the corner from where I lived was, for some reason, inhabited mainly by aerospace engineers, movie set designers, and Disney animation folks. The whole community got together and did a series of coordinated theme displays street by street, and the really ambitious engineers and whatnot competed with each other to see who could design and build the most elaborate and entertaining individual display. It was fun to go see that every year, though I expect the less enthusiastic neighbors resented the huge traffic jams on their residential streets. I don't know whether they still do that as I have not been back there in about 40 years.

[Nazgul Girl]

I like those reindeer made out of reeds or whatever that light up at night. I think they're cute. Especially the ones with the red noses.

[Tiny]

My neighbor has a hideous Homer Simpson as Santa inflatable thing. I think it's kinda creepy. They've also got a mishmash of stuff - a nativity, white 'reed' reindeer that light up, light up toy soldiers, light up candy canes lining the walk and who knows what else is in there. It's a 30 foot lot so everything is crammed in. It looks really awful during the day - like there's a lawn full of junk.

I look forward to the block of victorians where everyone has lined their porch roof and porch railings with lights. Some houses have additional lights in windows or in their trees/landscaping. The block looks kinda magical - the line of lights (on the porches) just pulls your eyes right along.

[alabamagal]

We used to have a Snoopy Santa Claus inflatable (~6' tall) in our front yard. Our teenagers used to groan when DD put it up. It died a couple years ago. We will always remember it, especially since the Google Earth people happened to take a picture of our house with Snoopy Claus in the front yard. When you look up my house in Google, it has a Snoopy Claus in the front lawn. When DS come home for Thanksgiving, he was using Google maps on his smart phone and he was greeted with the picture of Snoopy Claus when he pulled in the driveway...lol.

One of our neighbors had a giant Santa (~8 foot tall). He had his arm raised in greeting. DH would say it looked like the Nazi salute and called it NaziClaus

Last weekend driving home there was a house on the highway (in the middle of nowhere) that had about 15 inflatables in the front yard. The house was slightly better than a mobile home. It had to be ~$2000 worth of junk in their front yard.

[Deleted]

I am too cheap to buy inflatables. I have a $20 limit when it comes to buying any kind of decoration.

Our neighbors up the road have 2 giant pine trees in their yard and they have them lit up from top to bottom -- 1 all white, 1 multicolored and they look GORGEOUS!

What I don't like is when people only light up as far as they can reach on a pine tree; which is why we are not lighting ours up this year. We can't reach the top of it anymore!

[CarolinaKat]

Dec 5, 2012 13:43:06 GMT -5 dannylion said:

of the giant inflatable snow globe.

I love those things.

But not enough to buy one of my own. So I have to be content with the occasional serendipitous sighting on someone else's lawn.

What do you look forward to seeing on neighborhood lawns at Christmas?

I look forward to seeing my parents sleigh and reindeer. The sleigh and reindeer were made by my dad and our neighbor at the time, a retired master carpenter. My mother painted all of the deer, with indicidual characteristcs and the sleigh. There are shiny garland reins with chasing lights wrapped around them. Santa and his sleigh of packages (it's christmas greenery this year) are lit by a spotlight. Everyone in the neighborhood stopped by the year we didn't get them out 'on time' to see if everyone was ok

What I remember most about my childhood christmas is the display the carpenter would put on. He built little houses with plaxiglass fronts and some had the front roof made out of plexiglass. He would decorate the insides like miniture shop windows, with moving charachters inside and all kinds of things on the walls and hanvging from the ceiling and some even had fireplaces that would glow! He would decorate the outside of the houses with lights as if they were a regluar sized house. He had so many need things, A santa's workshop with moving elves, Santa and Mrs Claus sleeping (and snoring) in their bedroom. Goofy hanging christmas lights. He also made little town buildings; an old fashoned one room school house, a general store, grandma and grampa at home with their christmas tree and kittens playing in front of the fireplace, a church complete with stained glass windows and a piano. It was magicial!! He had about 20 of the little houses with different things in them. He has passed away now and I miss the little houses and the displays, but I have so many fond memories of going next door to hang out in his woodshop to see what he'd make next and going over at dusk on Thanksgiving night to flip the breaker and turn on all the little houses for the first time that year.

[whoami]

My absolute favorite Christmas decoration was one I saw last year on a walk through my neighborhood at night. Its a projection of Santa in an upstairs window where he is walking by the window carrying gifts...I think his reindeer make an appearance as well. It just looks so cool. I checked out the price on Amazon and it was like $250.

[Happy prose]

Whoami...what is that called on Amazon? I would love to see that. I like when people have their trees in their front windows so I can see. I'd like to do the same thing, but my furniture just doesn't allow it. I love all different wreaths too.

[whoami]

Dec 7, 2012 16:47:47 GMT -5 Happy prose said:

Whoami...what is that called on Amazon? I would love to see that. I like when people have their trees in their front windows so I can see. I'd like to do the same thing, but my furniture just doesn't allow it. I love all different wreaths too.

Look up Santa window projection on Amazon...I think that will take you to it. I love it.

[Deleted]

It looks like I am going to have to raise my base price on decorations. I wanted to pick up a couple more strings of Christmas lights on Friday night and was shocked to see that 200 ct LED lights are like $15/strand!


ETA: And while we were at Target my 6 year old DS said he wanted one of those blow-ups for our yard. I told him it was $60 and he agreed that $60 is a lot for a decoration.
I told them that they have sales after Christmas and we could get one for about $30 for next year if we wait. He and DD said that $30 was a better price.

[Happy prose]

Whoami...I just looked it up..so cool. There's a video of it on youtube. I haven't seen any in my neighborhood.

[kgb18]

I think one, and I stress ONE, inflatable ornament in a decent size yard is fine. I think it's tacky when people either A) Have a bunch, or B) Have a small house so the snow globe is the same size. DD loves those things. We fall into the small yard/small house category. I told her we could get one some day when we have a bigger house.

[Peace77]

I like to see electric candles in the windows and lit up trees in front of large picture windows.

If you are anywhere near Baltimore, The Avenue in Hamden (36th Ave near Roland) has every house on both sides of the block decorated. The homeowners are required to keep up the tradition if they buy on that block. They have some of the most creative displays I've ever seen. People come from all OCR the area to see it. It's a city block so very easy to walk up on the porches and see. One house has mechanical decorations in a protected alcove that have been saved for decades.

[dannylion]

Dec 10, 2012 20:20:37 GMT -5 kgb18 said:

I think one, and I stress ONE, inflatable ornament in a decent size yard is fine. I think it's tacky when people either A) Have a bunch, or B) Have a small house so the snow globe is the same size. DD loves those things. We fall into the small yard/small house category. I told her we could get one some day when we have a bigger house.

Actually, I think the tiny house with the giant decorations is hilarious. It has a sort of over-the-top weirdness that appeals to me.

[The Captain]

Meh. We have an inflatable globe, and whole inflatable santa choo choo train and and 8 ft frosty the snowman.

That plus a herd of wire deer and a bunch of lights is our outdoor contribution.

Now what I REALLY look forward to is what the neighbours do for every holiday. The guy owns a commercial landscape maintenance business and every holiday he has his crew do up his property right! It looks good and lights up the neighborhood!