apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

ha ha! I used to live down the street from the top photo (in Jacksonville FL), the owner is a lottery winner, and goes bananas with the holiday decor. I'd always roll my eyes while driving by, but it is pretty cheery.

Our new home is in what is technically considered a (brand new) condo complex. We have had exactly one homeowner's association meeting so far. The only business that came up aside from snow plowing and landscaping was holiday decorations: no inflatibles! (I thought it was funny that somebody in our little group felt so strongly about it they wanted them banned from the street! I wouldn't put them up, but they don't bother me that much. On the other hand, I don't care enough to stop a ban on them, either...)

We don't like kitschy decorations at all.

It's not Christmas to me until there's at least one road trip to see tacky (or, not tacky but over the top amazing) decorations! I don't really want it on my lawn, including inflatables, but it's fun to have variety.

My favorite is the house decorated by an Elvis impersonator, in Mahwah NJ - http://thomasefranklin.blogspot.com/2007/12/elvis-christmas-house.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewentworths/1352843740/

I don't need kitchy decor... the neighbors do plenty of that for me. For a good read on the subject, look up Jingle Hell by Laurie Notaro, from the book I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies).

I think there's really no way to have dignified Christmas decorations, even if that's what you intended. It's a strange custom as far as I see it. It's fun to participate, but I don't think that it is non-kitschy to do so.

Check out the the book Kitchmasland. http://www.kitschmasland.com/

Oh my! Am very familiar with that first house in JAX. I rather love that they go so far overboard each year. No reason to deny yourself such pleasure, if you ask me. Bah humbug to the rest.

every year as a kid my parents wouldnt put up lights other than yellow lights in our large pine tree in the front yard. but on christmas eve our house would shine. we'd put rows and rows of candles in brown paper bags along our street and make a runway for santa and candles along our porch railings, and we'd sit out the front of the house and watch people drive past and wave and talk about our holidays. it's one of my favourite memories. i'll be doing it with my kids.

After seeing how I decorated our home for Christmas, my husband proclaimed that no one would ever know that we are Wal-Mart haters.

Our tree actually looks pretty good. It's a 4' silver tinsel tree with a lot of tiny ornaments. Our wreath, however, is really cheesy. It's one of these things that's made of a lot of loops of metallic red ribbon. I found it at Big Lots for 10 bucks.

If it looks like something you'd see on http://www.uglychristmaslights.com , I don't want to know about it.

like a lot of you, I'm a NIMBY too. however, my lil' heart swells when i see those damn inflatables. i'm sure it says more about me than i want to admit, but i admire the chutzpah of those who give it their all!!

I don't do much decorating at Christmas, seeing as I live in a tiny studio apartment in the. I admit to having a little kitsch inside though- I have a couple painted crab ornaments from Razzo. http://razzo.piczo.com/?b=304772&p=start&c=18302319&cr=1

The house where I grew up, the neighbors on either side of us would go all out with the icecicle lights and spiral trees and moving reindeer. All we had to do was put a string of lights around our door and turn on the porchlight.
I am a strictly white lights kinda girl, but I think people should feel free to be as tacky and cheesy as they want. As long as it's once a year, I don't mind.
There were these weirdos in our neighborhood, though who kept up their lights and trees and giant handpainted (read:spray painted) MERRY CHRISTMAS sign up all year long.

No real kitch. Big "outdoor" bulbs hung from the balcony. Nice tree with lights and ornaments. No Elvis Santas, or beer drinking elves.

I thought I was going for that perfectly Martha decorated Christmans tree, but once all the ornaments and tinsel was on you could hardly see the green of the tree. May have gone a little overboard but hey it's not permanent and it is festive.

No colored lights, but other than that it's a fun time to experiment with glitter.

K T G - I agree with you, given one exception. There's a house up the street from us, a huge victorian on a corner lot. The owners pit electric candles in *all* the windows. The nighttime effect is refined and elegant.

My mom and I love to decorate for Christmas but are too lazy to go crazy with outdoor decorations. We have multi-colored icicle lights on the front and back porch, a small plastic lighted christmas tree hanging near the front door, a tacky red/green tinsel wreath on our gate, and more tacky green tinsel w/ candy canes wrapped around the top of the gate. There are also two yard decorations, a Santa Clause and Snowman. We've even started considering buying solar-powered spotlights so that they are visible at night. There's a set of lights we usually put out on the pathway up to the house but I tripped on them last year and ended up w/ deep scars on my knees so we didn't do that this year!

I say decorate as tacky as you want as long as you take them down in a timely manner. I hate it when people leave decorations out way too long or even all year.

Redjet, if I won the lottery, this might be pretty far down on my to do list! It looks like they're having fun, though.

At this, or ANY time of the year, there is ALWAYS room for unadulterated expressions of joy, be it front yard snow globe or Martha-inspired overdecorated trees.

And how many of us now look with distaste upon the same things that enchanted us as children?

i want to throw up on these people!!! what's missing is the crazy house in JP on the pondway with their psycho decorations and now their new jewish -just as tacky neighbors

besides the fact that these "decorations" (using the word liberally) are completely fugly and gawky, they are EXTREMELY obnoxious if you have to live next to these people. oh and lets not forget the waste of energy

just if you were still wondering, i fucking hate christmas and all the tacky shit that comes with it.

So I hope you give back all your Christmas presents.

When we were kids, my parents would take a drive "to see Christmas lights" almost every night after dinner. I still love to do that, and the gaudier the better. But, BUT I really hate those inflatable rubber things...reindeer carousels and snowmen in overalls.

I'll chime in on the inflatable hate. I guess it's petty, but at least one reason I don't like them is that they're too easy to put up. I'd rather see displays that require more effort, and creativity.

dianalily - I know the kind you're talking about. When I was a young teen, this look with the candles in the windows started up around the area where I grew up. It was so strangely ingenious. New. Nothing that had been seen in the current era. A very giant throwback that just smacked everyone on the forehead. It captured this perfect Americana look on some of the larger "estate" type houses, that the following Christmas, it was a complete trend. My mother hopped on that bandwagon. She is very strict about the electric candles! Still! Another popular look was the "outline every outline, the windows and gables and doors and everything" in white lights. It looks like a gingerbread house at night.

I still really think no matter how you represent, it's a little on the silly side. That's ok. I just don't know how else to describe it. It can reflect some kind of tasteful notion that one has decided to address Christmas with sobriety and dignified, simple, country boy charm, but you still bought your ticket and got on the bus bound for Christmastown. It's not Christmas today, for some reason, and it's not Christmas tomorrow. This diversion from normal activity and propriety has an end date, upon which we generally as a culture agree to cease being so silly, under threat of ridicule and banishment from decent society.

Our neighbor in Queens keeps all his decorations up year round. It's a complete mess...and yet oddly intriguing. Oh heck, it makes me smile and giggle every time I see it. Here's a picture I took on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iloveupstate/2346989036/

I quite like the crazy, over the top decorations (lights in time to music anyone?). I personally would never do anything that insane, but they can be fun to look at. I do, however, absolutely DESPISE those inflatable things... possibly because they seem to pop up at every other holiday as well so you're never truly rid of them. You can totally do kitsch without resorting to inflatables--they make me cringe every time I seem them.