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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