(Have Yourself) An Airy Little Christmas

When I was a girl (back when Grover Cleveland was President) people mostly hung a single string of lights across their porch for decorations at Christmas time. Occasionally an intrepid man with a band saw would make a wooden cut-out Nativity Scene that got planted in the front yard and was soon buried in deep snow, never to be seen again until the spring thaw in Mid-June.

These days, along with everything else, Christmas has become commercial and of course, utterly over the top in all categories. Taste has gone out the window and been replaced with Gigantic Inflatable Santas tethered to the lawn with Mobile Home Tie-Down Straps. Not content to just have a single Macy-Day Parade Giant Float on their lawns, folks seem to want to have Several of them, without regard to theme or placement. Huge Snow Globes jockey for position beside Frosty the Snowman, Snoopy as the Red Baron, Rudolph and Santa in a Golf Cart or Nascar.

Call me old fashioned, but there's something about a 4 foot inflatable Baby Jesus in a Manger that freaks me out!

Yesterday, while on my way to work I saw the tell-tale signs of the Inflatable Blight all over the lawns of the posh neighborhood where Miss Kitty lives. Deflated plastic blobs in red and white were everywhere, waiting for the moment when the air pump arrived to make them spring to life.

I was telling Jeff about this later in the day. I told him, "Everywhere you look people have their blow-up dolls on their lawns."

There was a horrified silence. "What kind of neighborhood were you driving through?"

It took me a moment for his meaning to sink in. "Not THAT kind of Inflatable Doll!" I said.

HO! HO! HO!