Disturbing Images Of Christmas

Every year, my wife adds a new thing or two to the Christmas decorations. Another string of lights, another wreath, another whatever. She did not succumb to the craze for "icicle lights", thankfully, but has steadily increased the acreage under cultivation, so to speak. The whole house is pretty well outlined in lights and various and sundry trees in the yard are groaning under the weight of multiple strings of Christmas illumination. This year she did succumb to a new craze, though. The in thing this year appears to be the inflatable snow globe. This modern marvel couples a noisy fan with a tacky plastic "snow globe" filled with little bits of Styrofoam. When everything is working, it looks sort of like a weird snow globish plastic inflatable with little Styrofoam bits fluttering around inside it. Thusly: 

Now, aside from the fact that this looks disturbingly like Santa got very hungry and chowed down on one of his assistants (Frosty the Snow Cone, apparently) It has a certain tacky charm. It amuses the kids and gives passersby a chance to laugh and point. All in all not a bad way to show a little holiday cheer, right? It was staked out right between the Red Sunset Maples in the front yard. Until last night, that is.

Somebody tried to kidnap Santa and his lunch assistant last night. So now Santa and his snack are right up close to the house, just outside the window of the office where I am writing this post, in fact. It is kind of sad that this kind of thing is happening more and more frequently. If you notice, it seems that fewer and fewer people are putting out decorations at Christmas time these days. Oh, a few keep up the efforts in every town and city and sometimes there are area competitions that get very elaborate. But there seems to be fewer houses in general doing it then when I was a kid. Back then it was kind of unusual for a house not to have some sort of decoration at Christmas. Even if it was only a string of lights. Disturbing, isn't it?

Well, at least Santa is safe. And well fed.