Posted on 12/22/2007 12:33:12 PM PST by BGHater
Over-the-Top Displays Inspire Loud Complaints, Even Rage; An Inflatable Santa Beheaded
Jim McDilda's holiday display last year included a 28-foot lighted arch, a 50-foot tree, 50,000 lights and dozens of animated silhouettes. The spectacle -- he needed a crane to set it all up -- lit up the sky and drew thousands of gawking visitors to his Redding, Calif., house.
But nearby neighbors weren't so thrilled. Cars, limos and tour buses clogged the cul-de-sac, and trash was strewn across lawns. Christmas music blasting from Mr. McDilda's display kept neighbors awake. They complained to the city, which required that Mr. McDilda get a special-events permit and demanded that he remove the nearby cargo containers he used to store the display most of the year. After months of sniping between Mr. McDilda and the city, he decided to throw in the towel. This year, his house is unadorned.
"They gave me so much trouble, they took the fun out of it," he says.
Look out, Santa: There's a backlash brewing against over-the-top holiday displays. With community associations ramping up holiday decorating contests (some in the hopes of attracting potential home buyers) and manufacturers pitching an increasing variety of yard decor -- think 8-foot inflatable snowmen -- some homeowners and cities have had enough.
Disgruntled neighbors complain of everything from traffic to wasted electricity. In places like Redding and Aurora, Ill., people called for the city to crack down on loud music or decorations that linger after holidays. Police in some areas of the country even report that the growing number of blow-up Santas adorning people's yards are targets for stabbing and other forms of violent
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
It's not in my taste; but he's gotta' be having a great life!
We have white blinky lights and colored rope lights (courtesy of Bill, my Decor Guy).
I don’t think we can be triplets: Clyde Asbury and I are the lost twin children of Thomas Sowell, and two more would get pretty weird.
They were featured on Channel 5's Chronicle last year.
They have 8 children and 4 grandkids. He says he does it for the children.
Warning!!! Do not go sight seeing at night until you know how to disarm the running lights on your vehicle...
These parts are lousy with inflatable Santas; the kind that only inflate when the lights are on. During the day, it looks like some kind of Kris Kringle massacre. Kind of brings a smile to my face, to tell the truth.
i don’t get it
Over-The-Top-Christmas decorations bump
Dad was a great one for Christmas yard displays. Each year he would take the time to put together a display that delivered a message of Christmas cheer. He seemed to work secretly on this project, since we were never quite sure what would appear in the front yard until he finished. The backdrop was always the same, a salvaged wooden highway snow fence. He would build before the fence a scene as elaborated as a movie set.Fantastic panoramas that took on the changing themes of our family life.
Sometimes the messae was a simple one, "Happ Holidays from the Ware Family." with snowman, snow woman, and snow children cut outs representing everyone in the family. In later years he used the display to welcome Frank home from college and Billy home from the service. All of us had been portrayed in the annual display. Babies were announced, graduations honored, and homecoming prodigals were welcomed back to the family that always missed them, always worried a little when we were gone and always kept the lights on as a homing beacon.......
I'm not sure how others felt about it, but it was both heartwarming and a little embarrassing for me to see the giant snowman with a hand painted William Penn College banner welcoming me home from my freshman year. What had delighted me in my childhood made me a bit self-conscious at eighteen. Years later I looked at home movies of mom and all of us playing around the front yard with the banner waving in the hand of the frosty giant in the background. Mom directed me to stand up against the snowman and stretched out my arms to match the snowman's pose. It looked to me, through the grainy image of the film like I had an embarrassed or some other miserable expression on my face. Wanting to feel grown up, I probably felt foolish. If I had only realized that our Christmases together were limited, I might have acted more grateful and less humbug. I might have smiled for the man behind the camera.
There are some Christmas Tree lanes that have a sign posted to turn off your lights and if you can’t you catch the wrath of the cars ahead of you plus the cars behind you plus the folks walking...
I don’t mind the sights. If the lights are too bright at night, I’ll just shut the friggin’ blinds. Noise and trash, on the other hand, would irritate the heck out of me.
Hopefully, the Bush energy bill won’t render your displays obsolete.
I’ve had to try hard not to be a Bush Basher over the many years of his nonconservative transgressions.
But signing that bill took the cake. He’s dead to me now.
Ping
After she died, brother cut it down and I don't think there was one person in town that didn't ask me why!
But signing that bill took the cake. He’s dead to me now.
He's pretty much the same to me and all the hundreds of dollars I may have to spend replacing light fixtures.
LOL, uh yeah. For a while anyway, then it got handed down to my son and then eventually each of his.
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