The Snob's Worst Nightmare

I am a snob when it comes to holiday decorations. If the person I am about to describe sounds like you, I apologize in advance. Know that I am talking of the people who take it to the extreme. Every year, John and I do this thing. We will pick a day that has been particularly stressful or otherwise difficult, and we will go on our annual Tacky Plastic Christmas Parade.

Let me give you the history of this. Just a few years after my mom's death, I was still having a difficult time with the holidays. I had befriended a girl who ended up being the one who introduced me to John, and one day I was feeling rather down.
"I know what you need, Andi," she said. "You need to go on a Tacky Plastic Christmas Parade!"
We all loaded into her small pickup truck, and cruised the neighborhoods of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky and laughed our asses off. I think I may have even peed a little bit. Laughing, of course, at the people who fill their lawns with the most amount of the tackiest Christmas statues and decorations one could imagine. Mismatched lights thrown haphazardly over bushes. And a few years later, the enormous inflatables. One or two of these is fine. This is something different altogether. But when you live in a run-down trailer, there is probably something better upon which to spend your money than an inflatable that is indeed bigger than your home.
So how do I decorate for Christmas? A tasteful wreath on the door. Maybe some candles inside on windowsills. Possibly a Christmas tree in the front window. Garland on the front porch railing. If I put up any lights, they are always white, placed precisely, and both are put up and taken down in a timely manner. Tasteful.

Of course th phenomenon of tacky holiday decoration has not stopped at Christmas. Nooooo. They do it for all sorts of holidays. And since I live in a duplex, I fall victim to the tastes of others.

So I wake up from my nap today after working a 12 last night to find my neighbors coating the front lawn--the shared front lawn---with that fake spider web shit. And they had the nerve to ask me if they could put my patio furniture--tasteful wrought iron patio furniture--in the back yard so they could put some tacky ghost he whittled out of wood in the front. And they are rigging up a fake dead body to the tree. And have a giant plastic fake spider they are putting on the house as I am typing ths. I cannot take it. I am going to die. And I have a feeling our house is going to be on the Tacky Plastic Christmas Parade this year.