Patterico's Pontifications

12/15/2012

What They Said

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 11:43 am



A creative solution to the problem of competing with your neighbor’s holiday decorations:

Heh.

13 Responses to “What They Said”

  1. I haven’t put up Christmas lights since I was stationed in San Diego in the late ’90s. I strung lights along the eaves of the house, put up lights in the shape of a Christmas tree on the chimney, strung lights along the rail fence surrounding the front yard.

    I thought it looked nice. But my neighbors all made the Eric Cyr of Maricopa look like a slacker. They made the Griswalds in “Christmas Vacation” look like lightweights. One older couple on the cul-de-sac just up the street not only put out more lights then did Cyr, in the evening the dressed up like Santa and Mrs. Claus and stood outside for hours passing out candy to the kids in the traffic jam that formed ever single friggin’ night to look at the over-the-top displays.

    Ho, ho, ho, Merry effin’ Christmas it tacked on another half-hour to my commute just to get to my driveway from the entrance of the subdivision. Less than two blocks.

    Sometime after New Years day someone left a note on my door. “Next year try harder.”

    I didn’t put up one light. The only lights I contemplated putting up would have been in the shape of a middle finger extending from a fist on the chimney.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  2. Bah! Humbug!

    Pious Agnostic (20c167)

  3. There was a time, after I left my parents house to live in the world, when I had no inclination to put up any Christmas decorations. I was living in an apartment during the mid-nineties when I noticed this one particular year – in early December, that there was not one decoration to be seen on the exterior of any apartment in my complex. So I took a good look at my rental agreement and found no prohibitions on lighting, decorations, and such.

    The next day was my day-off, so I went to Walgreen’s and purchased four (this was all I could afford)300-bulb ‘Twinkling” light sets and proceeded to wrap them from the first floor stair way railing up to my second floor balcony, around the windows and over the front door. When evening descended, I fired up the lights to look upon my handiwork – it was good. I then went inside to await the Gestapo – but, nothing.

    The next night I came home from work to find many of my neighbors hard at work on their own displays. Evebtually, every apartment had some kind of decoration up. That was a good year!

    Felipe (3243af)

  4. Yeah, saw this one… reversed, oddly enough… might have been another example of it, or a copycat.

    I saw another with a much more rude version that pointed next door and said “Cunt”.

    Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master and Gravitationally Distorting Object (8e2a3d)

  5. Actually, I think you will find that the owner of the massive display put up the “ditto” sign on behalf of the resident at the time a few years back. Subsequent owners have joined in and allowed him to continue the tradition.

    Gazzer (b57020)

  6. that’s not sustainable really but you know what who cares

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  7. My oil lamps are burning merrily in the window; I put in enough oil to last all night and well into the morning. But this was the last night of Chanukah; tonight the lamps will be dark šŸ™ But I’ll leave them in the window until January.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  8. Greeks usually leave the tree up until January 7, St. John’s Day, the day after Epiphany.

    nk (875f57)

  9. Shalom Allechem.

    nk (875f57)

  10. 6- Milhouse- Peace be upon you.

    mg (31009b)

  11. I’m a traditionalist so the hose lights grew out of the tradition of leaving a candle in the window to welcome any stranger who shows up at the door. Since I am not willing to provide bed and board for any stranger who knocks on my door, I am certainly not going to indulge in false advertising by doing the former.

    max (131bc0)

  12. Since celebrations are in this thread, Le college Kid just got his grades and including whatever terrifying level of calculus he’s on right now he got a 4.0 So YAYAYAy!

    SarahW (b0e533)

  13. Wow, Sarah. That’s awesome. I would be so proud.

    Dustin (73fead)


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