Inflatable Christmas

They’re cute. They’re often cuddly and sometimes strangely innovative. They dance, they glow, they wave as you drive by...holiday inflatables have taken over the venue of Christmas decorating. [Once again it would have been nice to have a photo to go along with this, but Blogger is acting up again.]

It used to be you hung some lights around the windows of your house, slapped a wreath on your front door and voila, you were ready for Christmas. Then some genius invented icicle lights and soon EVERYBODY had them. I always got a kick out of the houses that still had their icicle lights dangling from the roof in June.

The era of the icicle lights isn’t exactly over, but it’s taken a back seat to the inflatables. Another idea that’s making somebody filthy, filthy rich. I wonder how it came about, the idea to pump hot air into some cleverly constructed nylon – it was probably somebody watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and thinking, “Wow, I wish I had a fifty foot tall inflatable Santa...hey, wait a minute...”

Now, for instant Christmas, you can just jam an uplight into Santa’s tush and tether him to the front lawn.

Yes, I admit, I jumped on this bandwagon. Come on, it’s so easy, after all. We’ve got a chubby penguin that I named Marzipan Frangipani. He holds up a sign that says “Santa’s the Coolest!” and when we shut him off at night, he falls backward in slow motion like he’s dodging a bullet in The Matrix.

I love Marzipan, but I would like to get him a companion. There’s a very cute inflatable of two snowmen and a little Christmas tree that’s just adorable. My husband likes this one – Santa on a Harley, and the one with Snoopy on top of an igloo is also pretty cute.

I think you can take the relative ease of inflatable decorating a little too far, though. There are two houses around the block from us that have been engaged in a ‘hot air’ war for the past several years. At last count each house sported about two dozen [yes, about 24!] inflatables, including giant archways, perpetual snow globes and rotating carousels. I drove by the other night and the owners of one house were engaged in putting up even more stuff. Fortunately they have a large front lawn, but there’s not even a square foot of empty space left. I forgot my window was open a crack and I think the lady heard me utter a shocked, “This is just getting ridiculous!” as I passed by.

I feel a little bad about that. I didn’t really mean to offend her, because honestly, I don’t think you can have TOO much Christmas spirit, but I do think your electric bill can be way too high.
What do you think? Do you decorate with inflatables or are they just another passing fad like plastic flamingoes and pet rocks?

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