Circus the Grinch on holiday decorations

This entry was originally posted on 17 December 2004 at 12:00 p.m.

Please welcome the return of Circus the Grinch for another installment of this year's holiday observations. Today's program tackles the thorny issue of holiday decorations. Third in a short series.

There are about 290 million people in the United States, and about 80% of them identify themselves as Christians, according to sources like the US Census Bureau and various websites that house reliable religious statistics. Likewise, in 2002, there were over 109 million households in the US; roughly 36 million had children under the age of 18. If 80% of those households identify as Christian, that's almost 29 million households.

I know these are a lot of numbers. Bear with me.

If you figure that most Christian households with children under 18 years of age put up outdoor Christmas decorations (this is going to be a ballpark estimate--it's impossible in this short span of time to account for all the people who belong to Christian denominations that don't believe in holiday decorations, for example, or for the number of households that live in apartments, and so on), and if you figure that maybe half of the rest of the Christian households in the country also put up outdoor Christmas decorations, that yields...(let's see if we calculate in millions, 109 houseolds minus 36 households already accounted for, times point-eight--percent Christian, times point-five--percent we figure puts up decorations--and yes, i know there are easier ways to calculate this) roughly another 29 million households.

So, if we put this all together, we get a rough estimate of, say, 58 million households in the United States that might put up outdoor holiday decorations every year. Now keep in mind, this estimate isn't something that should be quoted, because once you start calculating things the way i did, you get farther and farther from accuracy. So this is totally conjecture and probably wrong, but i'm going to go with it.

58 million homes. That's a lot of lights. I mean, that's over half of the entire number of households in the country. And even if this estimate is high and, say, only a third of US households decorate their lawns for Christmas, that's still something like 36 million households. That's 36 million households where, every year, someone drags out a ladder and a bucket o' light strings and a ruler and a t-square and maybe even an automatic pump for their inflatable Santas and snowmen, and demonstrates to the rest of the neighborhood his (typically it's a male figure who does this) family's undying devotion to Christmas while inside, their children suck on candy canes until they're so sharp they can legally be used as weapons.

And good for them!

But.

It has come to my attention that many households cannot tell the difference between tasteful holiday decorations and absolutely tacky ones. In my grinchly wisdom, i will clarify this for you once and for all. To wit--

* White lights used to highlight key trees or bushes and spaced so that no light is within more than two or three inches of any other: tasteful.

* White lights on netting draped over every shrub in the yard, spaced so that each light is no more than one inch away from any other: tacky.

* Colored lights used sparingly to accentuate major structural lines: tasteful.

* Colored lights around every single window, corner, doorway, walkway, driveway, etc., or colored lights set in an arrow pointing to the main chimney's opening: tacky.

* Lights that conform to the natural topography of the landscape: tasteful.

* Lights wrapped around wire shaped to look like reindeer, sleighs, Santa, presents, etc.: tacky.

* Icicle lights, hung along the front eaves, in combination with tasteful lights: tasteful.

* Any lights that blink, flash, play music, dance, etc.: TACKY.

And finally, also worthy of note: inflatable snowmen, Santas, etc., are extremely tacky and should be avoided at all costs. Especially those that come with built-in illumination.

Heed these simple rules, my friends, and you too will escape the punishment for tacky decorations (oh yes, there's punishment!): lawn tipping.

Yes, you heard me right, folks: lawn tipping. I propose that Christmas Eve be made the Christmas equivalent of Mischief Night. And this will be the night during which all the kids who already know they're getting coal in their stockings are free to go out and punish the households whose unrefined tastes have led them to stake gigantic cardboard candy canes and gingerbread houses in their front yards. And they will punish these tacky microlandscapes by unstaking the inflatable snowmen and gingerbread houses, by laying the bobbing reindeer on their sides so that they twitch disturbingly on the ground, and by pinning to all the wooden signs imploring Santa to stop at this house a note reading,

Dear Family,
The elves went on strike and we recently discovered that the reindeer all carry Lyme disease. Please accept our apologies, but Santa wasn't be able to stop here this year.
Sincerely,
North Pole Associates, Inc.

So there you have it. If you wish to avoid this kind of mayhem, please be a responsible decorator and decorate tastefully. I can't be held responsible otherwise.

With very, very deep gratitude to the elusive B for the concept of lawn tipping.