Decorating for Christmas and meandering thoughts

I like Christmas decorations, especially at other people’s houses where I don’t have to set them up and take them down. But there are some that area particularly interesting and that while they amuse me, I’m also very glad I don’t have to claim ownership.

First off, there are those silly inflatable things. I’m amused that people actually buy them and while I find them tacky, they also make me happy in a silly sort of way. Sam loves them so I’m glad other people are willing to spend $100 plus at K-Mart to fill their yards with these things.

Then of course there are the lighted reindeer. I’d consider them much lower key than the inflatable but there is one house in Burlington where they’ve been arrange to appear to be humping and I doubt Santa would approve. The only time reindeer reproduction is ever hinted at in any Christmas capacity is in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” where all the little reindeer fawns get together to play their reindeer games. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I don’t have a picture this little display because it’s in their window and I’d feel a little weird taking a picture, just a little to close to being a peeping tom for my taste. Oh, and I don’t think either of the reindeer involved is Rudolph…

I do like lights and there are lots of houses with lots of lights. It can be taken to the extreme and while it’s sort of fun to see, I can’t imagine spending the time necessary to turn my house into a geek's lightshow. For comparison, here is our house:

Tacky, bright, and simple. I especially like that the angle makes it look as though our house gets smaller on the right.

Speaking of lights, I'm not a fan of the new LED Christmas lights I've seen. They're bright but they don't throw any light so I find them inadequate somehow. I much perfer the energy-wasting environmentally incorrect variety. I'll just do fewer of them so maybe next year I'll limit myself to one strand across the top of the porch. We already have the energy saving single strand on the tree. Yeah, that's why we have only one strand!

Of course, the majority of people do some tasteful decorationing inside and out. There are a few that appear to be students of Martha Stewart and I must say, I wish she'd come and decorate my house. Better yet, decorate it and then come remove the decorations sometime around January 1. My across-the-street neighbor, who used to decorate shop windows for a living but now manages a home accessory store, decorates his porch in a very festive style but Sam is a little afraid of the larger than life-size wooden soldier protecting the door. Perhaps he could do an entire regiment of soldiers and protect the entire street.

Still, I love seeing outrageous Christmas displays better than all the tasteful stuff because, well, maybe I'm just tacky. I really miss the old department window displays of my childhood. It was a childhood Christmas tradition to go to see the windows at Pranges in downtown Green Bay. Their displays were impressive and I found this discription at the Brown County Museum site:

Christmas at Pranges. A Christmas tree stands outside of a decorated H.C. Prange Department Store, Green Bay, Wisconsin, ca. 1960s. The Prange’s Christmas windows were a long-standing holiday tradition in Green Bay, as well as for the other communities the department store served. As early as 1939, the Green Bay Press-Gazette newspaper ran an advertisement in the Thanksgiving edition that stated that the Prange windows would be unveiled at 5:30 that evening, and that the crowd should expect “ Action! Trills! Drama!” as they viewed "candy-makers at work, Jumbo, the elephant, tugging away at a load of toys! And you'll see the most cunning dolls and toys, gathered from far and near." Furthermore, “Friday, H.C. Prange Co. swings wide its doors to a Christmas wonderland…a city of twinkling poinsettias, shining tinsel, glistening stars and magical gift courts. A City of a Thousand Gifts collected from the far corners of the globe…particularly our own treasure-laden United States….” Often these windows were planned months in advance, selecting themes that included holiday merchandise. The window displays were usually assembled in a display room first so that the mechanical pieces could be inspected and the display arranged. It was then reassembled in the windows. From the middle1930s through the late 1970s, Prange’s windows presented hundreds of scenes, including a Victorian family in the snow and a tiger with glowing eyes, as well as snow babies and a barnyard hoe-down. The Henry Lefebvre Collection of the Neville Public Museum of Brown County, #18.1988.14082.

There aren't any windows like that around here, there aren't any department stores that aren't in malls either. I understand that NYC has some great window displays, isn't Barney's supposed to be spectacular?* But I liked that a small town store would do something as elaborate as the Pranges display. Ah yes, the price of Srawl-Martization. Stores aren't part of the community any longer, it's all generic.

But we like generic as kids too. Every year we spent hours and hours, and oh yes, hours going through the JC Penny and Sears catalogs while making our Christmas lists. By the end of the season those catalogs were worn out and frankly, I'm surprised my mom didn't just toss them as soon as they got arrived. Maybe she liked that they kept us quiet for a bit.

Upon reflection, Christmas was great as a kid. It was all anticipation and absolutely no work. The shopping (or gift making) was fun. Cookie decorating was just that, decorating. It didn't include things like that pesky clean-up step. The tree went up and the lights went on so our participation was limited to the fun stuff. I remember that my favorite ornaments were plastic ones, something like these, but I think they had angels inside. Very classy. Unbreakable was the name of the game in those years. There were also some funky elves and those satin ornaments, some of which were long and thin and even in red and white stripes! I know there are pictures of the trees of our youth out there somewhere.

As we got older we made exciting new ornaments from Shrinky Dinks! We strung popcorn and cranberries until we got bored with breaking popcorn so the strings were at most about three feet long.

Spent a little time on Christmas reminising today and happy winter solstice everyone! And wish my mother-in-law Susan a happy birthday while you're at it.

*After I wrote this I did a bit of webserfing and found this article about NYC window displays. Enjoy.