Have you visited any of the Christmas lights in the suburbs over the past few weeks?
We drove past a handful of decorated houses last night. Thankfully we avoided the really well known spots that have a queue of cars around the block.
One of the homes we stopped at would have to be my favourite so far. It had a number of different styles of lights that all blended together so well. The house didn’t have every square centimetre covered in lights and there were no tacky decorations plastered across the yard. It was simple and uncluttered but it really stood out as visually pleasing.
I get very tired of seeing people going bigger and bigger each year with their lights and displays. I don’t want to see hundreds of mismatched toys and lights competing for space on the front of someone’s house. I know what clutter looks like. I don’t need to see it up in lights.
I don’t want to visit houses with 72 different kinds of Santa and 33 reindeer displays. If I wanted to see all the latest tacky plastic Christmas gizmos I’d go to K-Mart.
What started out as a number of people wanting to create something beautiful to bring joy has become a competition where those taking part feel the need to spend more and more to cram more and more plugs into their power sockets each year. They’ve lost the plot.
Bigger and more isn’t always better. And we do well to remember that – especially at this time of year.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
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You have finally put into words for me that nagging feeling I have had in the back of my mind that something was just not right with these light displays getting bigger and bigger, and tackier and tackier! From some of the media reports, for some people this is a year long hobby (obsession?) designing, building, hand painting light globes . . . HAND PAINTING LIGHT GLOBES for goodness sake, what is going on here? They spend hours each week working on these displays, surely there is more to life? Spending time with your wife and children, spending time with friends, spending time on your bike . . . . . . ok, finished ranting now.
Good rant Bruce.
I think you saw the same report that I did about the guy who hand painted thousands of bulbs because he didn’t like the colour of the store bought ones.
If I remember correctly he holds down a normal job and on top of that puts 50 hours a week, all year round, into getting his Christmas display ready. Please – get a life.
I thought then that if he really wanted to bring joy to the community, as he claims is his aim, he would put 50 hours a week into working with the homeless or volunteering with local families or organisations.
One of my friends has coined a term to describe those displays containing every lit-up lawn ornament known to man… “Christmas Barf.” It’s a keeper.