2002-12-24 - 1:46 p.m. so turn around and run back where you're from... 'tis the season... to listen to the 'chain on vinyl as loud as your neighbors can stand, whilst crackin' open the bottle of 'Zin you rec'd for your birthday, and sharing your delightfully tacky holiday lights photos w/your diaryland compatriots, n'est pas? The photo at the top of this page is the least tacky photo in my holiday lights oevre, snapped entirely because it reminded me of a truffula tree. Despite my delight in all things seussified, I refrained from snapping any photos of the huge inflateable, interior-lit Grinches that towered over houses throughout the Valley. Why? Because they were SCARY, that's why. Big green Mr. Grinch is not something you want to see towering 3 feet overhead after a night of holiday revelry... this is one of the reasons I like living in the City -- no one in my neighborhood has any scary inflateable lit-up lawn ornaments for the holidays... Now, some viewers might be saying to themselves, while viewing this photo, that, perhaps, almost gold is a big fat grinch, utterly lacking in holiday spirit. After all, though it may be a bit too brightly lit for some folks, this looks like a perfectly sweet holiday light display, right? BUT... did you notice that huge white glow emanating form the garage window? Brighter, nearly, than all the other lights? That would be their festive neon BUD bar sign, and the reason for their inclusion here. This is the house that started the tacky holiday lights tour. My friend and chauffeur, whose family lives in this city, described this house as looking "like Christmas threw up." This comes from a woman whose house is festively decorated each year by the weekend after Thanksgiving, and who can barely part with her tree on New Year's Day. She was specifically bothered by the festively decorated chain link half fence around the yard (which made her wonder what they were trying to keep in/out of their yard -- dogs? elves?) I think we counted 3 santas and his sleigh here, plus a nativity scene, several frosty the snowmen, and too many santas to count... It appears their next door neighbors were trying to outdo them. With their festively decorated tree house in their front yard, they came pretty close, and certainly won for novelty value. Somehow, I managed to refrain from snapping a photo of the neighbor across the street who had a junky old car parked on their lawn that obscured half of their holiday light display... in all honesty, I'd flashed back to a high school memory involving rednecks in a truck with a gun rack running my friends off the road. No need to rekindle those happy memories just for a photo... Now, if the junky car had been festooned with holiday lights, I would've taken the photo after all. It's always interesting how people incorporate their house's everyday charm into the photo. Like this house, for instance. Rather than take down the cow skull that adorns their garage door, they chose to accentuate it with...two red lights in the eye sockets. Because nothing says "Merry Christmas!" like a cow skull with beady red lights for eyes. Just ask all the little kids who were crying as their parents drove them past this house...Note that the skull is perched directly above a Winnie the Pooh flag... Of course, it is possible that they weren't crying about the skull at all. They could've been upset by Santa being stranded, next door, in a sea of rocks and dirt, surrounded by a shark, pokey, iron fence. It's hard to tell, really. At least this house didn't have one of those disturbing ponds for the reindeer to drink from. Those always either look like they are full of anti-freeze thanks to the weird glowing blue colors people favor for the water, or they are junky and made of tin foil and remind me of the very scary stop animation rudolph special that has the ice monster and the heat monster in it... or was that a frosty the snowman special? either way, it was scary and I've been scarred for life... I'm saving up the most unusual/confusing photo for my next entry... joyeaux holiday of your choice!!! xo almost gold P.S. Please take my "completing 2002" survey. THANKS!! any comments? (1 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09