Jodi and I like to take the long way home in the winter. We go through neighborhoods that surround our usual destinations, looking for well-decorated houses. With Christmas in just a few weeks, people in California have done all kinds of crazy things to decorate their lawns and homes. This one house, not far from where we live, has its lawn covered in clear plastic bags of packing peanuts, resembling snow piles, and their orange tree draped in tinsel and overflowing with colored lights. Little train-shaped light displays, elf and Santa cut-outs, and animatronics abound. It’s just great.
We’ve also noticed a lame trend: net lights. These are the webs of pre-organized lights that you can wrap around tree trunks or throw over shrubs. It’s supposed to look like you strung lights all around them, but it just looks like a square mat of lights lazily draped and taped around crisply maintained shrubbery.
This is another sign of lameness at Christmastime. Put some effort into it! Walk around that tree with stranded lights until you’re sick from it! Wrap those tangles of wire and bulbs lovingly around your prickly shrubs! For God sakes, make it look like you suffered a little for the cheer of the neighborhood and the spirit of the season!
