Nightmares

Now that Thanksgiving weekend is in the past tense, I find that more and more I dislike driving at night. Every time I venture out in a residential neighborhood after dark, I begin muttering and mumbling. What are they thinking? What in the world motivates people to engage in such excesses of gaudy, tiers of tacky, and unrestrained ugly? 

Whoever came up with the idea of inflating plastic replicas of cartoon characters and snow globes as a form of Christmas decoration should be subjected to listening to a continuous loop of "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" for their crimes against culture. Those neighbors who insist on attaching strings of lights in multiple colors to every inch of architecture and lanscaping within reach should be forced to sleep under klieg lights. Somewhere there must be a school of design teaching the "the more stuff the better" and "anything goes with everything else" rules of holiday decorating. 

I guess this means I'm a traditionalist when it come to decorating for the holidays - or at least a minimalist. I refuse to put up orange Halloween lights or hang pastel plastic eggs from a tree, but I do like lots of lights - white, of course,  a couple green wreaths and yards and yards of garland in December. Oh, yes, I try to have at least one tree of some size or kind in every room. But definitely, simple and classic!  

Maybe next weekend I'll put up some decorations - or I could just be content with the Christmas decorations that I use year round   :)