A Brief History of the Ginormous Novelty Holiday Decoration

[DGUtley]

A Brief History of the Ginormous Novelty Holiday Decoration - They’re tacky, lazy and an abomination. They’re also just what we need..

Full disclosure: I do not have any of these. I have never had any of these.


Want to see how our culture has changed over the years? Look to the holiday movies. The Christmas canon used to center around heterosexual relationships — epitomized by the dozen or so in Love, Actually — but this year Hallmark is debuting its first holiday film centered around a gay couple. In both movie versions of Miracle on 34th Street, Kris Kringle is a jolly old fellow; but in 2020, Kurt Russell and Mel Gibson are imbuing their takes on Santa with a heavy dose of machismo (the former amusing, the latter categorically insane). The clearest linear progression, however, comes not in the plot or characters, but on the front lawns.

In A Christmas Story, which takes place around 1940, there’s the gaudy tree and leg lamp, but the exterior of the Parker house is devoid of ornamentation. In National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Clark Griswold’s Christmas light excess is supposed to be farcical, but by today’s standards his design is practically tasteful. I’d compare our modern holiday decorating standard to 2006’s forgettable Deck the Halls, in which Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito go head-to-head in a decorating slugfest — but we’ve gone even more off the rails than that.

In 2020, society’s outdoor Yuletide decorations have stepped boldly into a new era, one where the ginormous novelty object is king. You’ve probably seen them — inflatable Santas, two-story Frostys, Home Depot’s 12-foot Halloween skeleton repurposed as part of a Nightmare Before Christmas theme — as they’ve risen on front lawns, backyards and even rooftops in your neighborhood, kickstarting a Christmas season that seems to be arriving earlier than ever.

But when did we collectively decide to ditch string lights and nativity scenes in favor of towering, tacky monoliths? It all goes back to another equally kitschy gimmick: the Big Mouth Billy Bass.


https://www.insidehook.com/article/h...tm_source=digg


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We own most of this set, have since 1987-ish. I built a stable which fell apart last summer and I have yet to build another. It drove the kids nuts when they were teens, so I'd make sure I'd drag it out and put it in the middle of the front yard. Wonderful. I will probably build a new stable this summer.

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These are the lights:

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[carolina73]

With so much of America losing their religion, the trinkets have become the celebration.

How many people go to midnight mass anymore? Christmas day services?

I do like the 12 foot skeleton though. I might have to get one! If I can only hook it up to my doorbell to slide down the roof on shock cords, then I can get revenge on the doorbell ditcher that rang our bell at 3:30 in the morning.

[Collateral Damage]

I'll have to take a picture of the house and yard (I think they are on .15 of an acre) just around the corner from my house. Only a picture will show the true impact.....

At home, the inside tree in the window, a string of lights on a shrub outside, a wreath, and a wooden Santa cutout by the door. Simple is our season.

[DGUtley]

There's that house down the street - the kids called it the "Garden Shop House" b/c they had every possible thing they could have. yeah, the wife likes the lights. Christmas is her "thing".

[Standing Wolf]

I see a reasonable number of lights on most houses, as there have always been - no real changes in the last fifty years. There's one house in my neighborhood that fills their front yard and rooftop solidly with an enormous amount of stuff every Halloween and Christmas; they may do Thanksgiving, too, I haven't noticed, and I've heard that there are a few houses in other parts of the city that just go crazy with the lights, but they're the rare exception.

What I think is kind of obscene is the homeowner - and we read about one of these every year, it seems - whose neighbors complain about the constant traffic that these displays bring, or the Christmas music they sometimes have blaring on outside speakers, and then the homeowners will complain to the press about how their "religious freedom" is being attacked. (Who are you worshipping - Thomas Edison?) We had one in town here a couple of years ago who had an enormous light display (including lasers), music playing every time someone drove or walked by the house, plus the homeowners were selling hot cocoa to visitors. The city finally told them they couldn't sell the cocoa and damned if they didn't play the Religion Card.

The wife puts up a few strings of lights around the edges of the front of the house, and on some trees and bushes, but the only "ginormous" touch is a very large inflatable one of these:

The octopus is named "Hank", the fish is "Dory" and it's from a Disney film. As far as I know it has absolutely no connection with Christmas, but she gets up on the roof every November and puts it up, complete with a little motor that keeps it inflated 24/7. It makes her happy and the kids in the neighborhood love it, so what the heck.