Glow-Up Snowmen and Houses of Distinction

Let it be known: I love me some Christmas lights.  Despite my intense hatred of cold, I kind of love winter and all the fantastic things it brings; to wit, Christmas lights, ice skating, sledding, and snow day road anarchy.  I even fancy a little snow, and wouldn’t mind going cross country skiing or snowshoeing if I didn’t think I’d die.

But, the point of this is Christmas lights.  I wanted to post about my idea of Christmas light -fail-, but believe it or not, I couldn’t find a single example in Rocketdog, Rocketpuppy, and Danger Kitty’s annual light night.  So I’ll have to describe it, which isn’t nearly as much fun as seeing it.  Actually, seeing it isn’t very fun either, so I guess describing is okay.

Christmas light FAIL is the house that half-assedly throws a string of lights on a tree.  One tree.  Perhaps they are hoping for some sort of Jackson Pollack-esque result, but in my eyes it is sad and pathetic.  This isn’t even a result of not heeding my life saying: Go big, or go home (Actually, it’s “If you’re going to go down, go down in flames,” but I feel that’s in poor taste when discussing Christmas decorations).  The single strand, single tree is even more pathetic than Charlie Brown’s tree.  Honestly, if that’s all you’re going to do, keep the lights in the box where they belong.

But this post would be nothing without examples of what I think are awesome light displays which typically fall into two categories.

Impressive:

Infamous house of the Reindeer Birthday Party

Sorry so shaky, all pictures from our night were taken from the car, without a tripod.  Since it was night photography, the shutter is open longer, making photos more prone to blurring.

The Reindeer Birthday party was a couple years ago.  This house is no longer nearly as impressive as it was then.  Apparently the economy has hit even the reindeer.  The story behind the name is that Rocketdog and I found our way into a neighborhood with “houses of distinction.”  As we got further down the road, we ran into tons of parked cars.  Then parked animal trailers.  I can’t remember if we actually saw reindeer, but I decided it had to be a reindeer birthday party, and it stuck.  That was also the year of the mausoleum-like life-sized crèche.  The recession has been bad for over-the-top celebrations.

And….

Houses that Vomited Christmas:

House that Vomited Christmas III

I decided to post House III first because it photographed the best.  That house had EVERYTHING, including dancing icicle lights.  These weren’t your standard strands that hang down to look like icicles… These were plastic-formed icicles with lights inside.  Amazing.  They had the lights set to move almost as if the icicles were dripping.  They also had a huge star somehow mounted a good 50 feet above their house.  It was probably in a tree, but I’m thinking it was actually an act of God. (Or a Christmas miracle, if you will)

The original House That Vomited Christmas (the reason we drove up to my neighborhood, anyway) is thus:

HTVC I

This house makes me eternally happy.  It was one of the first things I fell in love with in my neighborhood.  I love me some lights.  Yo.  They leave it up a really long time after Christmas too.

HTVC II

HTVC II photographed really poorly, so I will leave you with this:  They actually took the time to decorate their RV.  That’s dedication.  There’s also a flying santa above the RV.

HTVC IV

Then you’ve got your blow-up lawn schlock.  Which is sort of a cheating version of vomiting Christmas, but vomitous nonetheless.  Apparently either winter snow people are either fans of Tony Stewart, or this family got their blow-ups from Home Depot.  Either way, the pit crew in the background was adorable.

By now you’re probably wondering, “What the hell did she mean by glow-up‽  Glow-up isn’t even a word!”  Well, it wasn’t a word.  Not until I made it a word on the first night of Hanukkah (because we felt it fitting to go look at lights to kick off the festival of lights.  Which we do not celebrate).  Glow-up is my new name for those hard plastic lawn ornaments that glow.  Glow-up.  The only thing close to Christmas light fail we saw all night was a single glow-up snowman at the end of a driveway at one of the Houses of Distinction (Reindeer birthday party’s neighbor).  However, since you wouldn’t be able to see the house in the picture, it just wouldn’t have been effective.

My second to last picture doesn’t categorize well.  It’s not impressive, and it’s not vomitous.  It’s just a head-scratcher.

Sticks in a Bucket

This is one of Rocketdog’s neighbors.  Since the year she and BILOSORD moved in, this house has been known as “Sticks in a Bucket.”  Even during the summer.  There’s just no better name for the display or the house.  They are literally sticks.  In buckets.  They show up at Thanksgiving every year without fail.  It’s almost comforting.

Last, but not least, is the second-most impressive Christmas display I’ve ever seen.  I would have put it up top with the Impressives, but it deserved to be a finale.  It speaks for itself, I think, so I shall leave you now.  My bread is almost done baking.  Nom.