Tacky Christmas Yards. REALLY Tacky.

December 18, 2007 1:28 PM

tacky christmas yards dot com is exactly what it sounds like. [via]
posted by dersins (45 comments total)

Nice! Nothing says Christmas spirit like a strobe-induced seizure
posted by psmealey at 1:36 PM on December 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Holy hell.
posted by inconsequentialist at 1:37 PM on December 18, 2007

Previous related threads: 'Christmas Decorating Obsession' and 'Too many Christmas lights?.'
posted by ericb at 1:41 PM on December 18, 2007

Show Off Your 2007 Christmas Display at PlanetChristmas!
posted by ericb at 1:43 PM on December 18, 2007

Welcome to Picktown Lights.com: "Home of the computer-controlled multiple house animated musical synchronized holiday light display in Pickerington, Ohio."
posted by ericb at 1:45 PM on December 18, 2007

I like it when Santa and the Infant Jesus interact in front yard tableaux. It's sort of like when Buffy would appear on Angel, or Spiderman shows up to help Wonder Woman.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 1:45 PM on December 18, 2007 [3 favorites]

I really hate those ubiquitous blow up balloon characters. Better to have nothing than those hideous creations.
posted by any major dude at 1:46 PM on December 18, 2007

This is where this unholy evil is perpetrated here in Portland. Pics here.
posted by dersins at 1:48 PM on December 18, 2007

I kinda like the lights. Pretty. Shiny. Makes Mrs. Maxwelton happy. (We have none of our own, though Mrs. M "has plans.")
posted by maxwelton at 1:52 PM on December 18, 2007

REALLY Tacky.

A.K.A. just average tacky for Napa, CA.
posted by signal at 1:54 PM on December 18, 2007

If you're going to go through all the trouble of synching up your display to a song, at least blink the lights with some regard for the melody. The porch lights blinking left-to-right at the beginning (and the left-to-right windows later on) ruins the whole effect.

I do have a certain fondness for tacky decorations, though, and especially those that go beyond the norm and come up with something really insane and offensive. I made an illegal U-turn last winter to look at such a monstrosity--it looked like the house in psmealey's video, except that it was just random flashing and movement--and found the block jammed with cars that had done the same.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:57 PM on December 18, 2007

When I was growing up, my family made a Christmas tradition of driving around the nearby "rich" neighborhood (which wasn't all that rich, in retrospect... my young middle class mind didn't know any better, though) to view the lights and decorations. One thing I was appreciated about the more impressive displays was the amount of homemade igenuity involved.

Back then, if you wanted a giant nativity scene in the front yard or a hundred light encrusted snowflakes on the roof, you often had to buy the raw materials and design and build everything yourself. Now, however, you can just go to Wal-Mart and buy a kajillion inflatable snowmen and robotic reindeer, scatter them around the yard, plug them in, and go back to watching football.

I don't pay much attention to Christmas light displays anymore.
posted by jal0021 at 1:58 PM on December 18, 2007

Holy shit, these people appear to be enjoying themselves! Let's rise up, internets, and bitch about it!
posted by WinnipegDragon at 2:03 PM on December 18, 2007 [2 favorites]

Some of these look pretty tame.

My all-time winner is the relatively ungaudy inflatable igloo in somebody's yard near here. It's animated, showing Santa and a snow man taking turns appearing out of the top of the igloo. But since neither go up and down very far it looks for all the world like Frosty's giving Santa a cold backdoor surprise.
posted by ardgedee at 2:04 PM on December 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Is anyone else saddened by the complete lack of snow in these pics?

/sadpanda
posted by butterstick at 2:09 PM on December 18, 2007

I love these lights. I love Rudolph looking after Baby Jesus. If we didn't have a huge laurel bush blocking the view of our house from the street, I'd be up on the roof plugging in the Santa-climbing-up-the-chimney lights right now.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:10 PM on December 18, 2007

Deck the Halls!
posted by ericb at 2:11 PM on December 18, 2007

Energy consumption: it's the reason for the season.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 2:15 PM on December 18, 2007

Wow. I haven't seen anything that extreme in the DC area (that's not to say it doesn't happen), but the trend I see here are those damn life-size snow globes. I pass one house on my commute that has at least 8 of those things in the front yard. I assume you can buy them in bulk at Costco.
posted by itchylick at 2:15 PM on December 18, 2007

Nothing "says Christmas" more than Elmo, SpongeBob, Homer Simpson and 17,000 Christmas lights. Check out our webcam -- "view and control stuff!"
posted by ericb at 2:15 PM on December 18, 2007

PlanetChristmas! Consulting Group

"Got a Christmas decorating project and don't know where to start or you are just plain overwhelmed? Tap into the vast world of the PlanetChristmas Consulting Group. Chuck Smith will help you find the expertise for your commercial, office, church, residential and/or personal displays.

What makes the PlanetChristmas Consulting Group different from the rest? Passion! We know the power of great Christmas displays. Whether it's to drive customers to your business, make a statement in your community or just impress the children in your neighborhood, nothing makes lifelong memories like Christmas displays.

PlanetChristmas has been involved in grand Christmas displays for 25 years. We realized early on how people are drawn to Christmas decorations and love to talk about "that one house" or business that really goes over the top. Today people want to see grand Christmas shows and be entertained. Even the crankiest Scrooge's begin to mellow and get caught up in the Christmas spirit. The PlanetChristmas Consulting Group has been-there-done-that from the beginning."

I think I'll start the BaHumbug! Consulting Group. Partnership and associate positions available. Apply via e-mail.
posted by ericb at 2:20 PM on December 18, 2007

badlytakenphotosoftackychristmasyards.com, you mean
posted by wfc123 at 2:20 PM on December 18, 2007

tacky christmas yards dot com is exactly what it sounds like.

You competely misspelled totally fucking awesome, but thanks for the post (and comments, everyone). I do so love extravagant Christmas lighting/decoration.
posted by sleepy pete at 2:29 PM on December 18, 2007

ericb writes "Nothing 'says Christmas' more than Elmo, SpongeBob, Homer Simpson and 17,000 Christmas lights."

Wait ... why is Homer wearing a skeleton costume?
posted by krinklyfig at 2:31 PM on December 18, 2007

Yeah, this would be much more entertaining if you could actually see the decorations.
posted by signal at 2:31 PM on December 18, 2007

Holy shit, these people appear to be enjoying themselves! Let's rise up, internets, and bitch about it!

Yeah, well, I was watching American History X last night and it seemed like the guy who raped Derek in prison was enjoying himself. But I'm not going to congratulate him for it.
posted by punishinglemur at 2:34 PM on December 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

BTW, the Bugg House in Albuquerque used to be a great example of this. He no longer puts up his decorations. It was pretty extravagant, then or now. Full disclosure: Norm Bugg was a client of mine a couple years ago when I was doing computer consulting.

But this is more like our traditional holiday decorations. (The pictures don't really do them justice, and I just found them with a quick search.)
posted by krinklyfig at 2:40 PM on December 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

punishinglemur writes "Yeah, well, I was watching American History X last night and it seemed like the guy who raped Derek in prison was enjoying himself. But I'm not going to congratulate him for it."

I fail to see the connection.
posted by krinklyfig at 2:41 PM on December 18, 2007

I hate Christmas lights. They snarl traffic, consume too much electricity, and annoy the neighbors.

Humbug.
posted by sonic meat machine at 2:43 PM on December 18, 2007

Yeah, this would be much more entertaining if you could actually see the decorations.

if you click on the photos some of them get a lot bigger
posted by pyramid termite at 2:47 PM on December 18, 2007

No one has mentioned the family who was ordered to shut down their lights and tried to take their case to the Supreme Court? Photos. With dedication like that, there's only one place to house it: Disney.

What's it take to make The Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights come to life?
Number of watts of electricity: 800,000
Hours to install: 21,000
Extension cords (in miles): 32.2
Tie Wraps: 1,000,000
Christmas lights (in miles): 350
Number of angels: 150
Total number of lights: 5,000,000
posted by Tehanu at 3:28 PM on December 18, 2007

This is where this unholy evil is perpetrated here in Portland.

Ooh, lifehack: if you walk down Peacock Lane instead of driving, it doesn't take five fucking hours.
posted by cortex at 3:48 PM on December 18, 2007

Even better-- if you stay completely away from it, it doesn't take any time at all!

Although there's little more irritating than trying to get somewhere on upper hawthorne this time of year, and trying to take a shortcut to avoid the annoying 39th & hawthorne intersection only to realize you've forgotten all about peacock fucking lane. Oh man do I hate that.
posted by dersins at 4:19 PM on December 18, 2007

They do it on boats, too.

Watch the video.
posted by winna at 4:30 PM on December 18, 2007

This is happening in my upper-middle-class neighborhood, where you think people would know better.

A few streets away, one family has filled their lawn with giant inflatable snowglobes, possibly the kind which you turn on to make the snow whirl around.

If the family's kids pestered them to do this, I will excuse them, but otherwise, they have passed the margins of sanity.
posted by bad grammar at 5:33 PM on December 18, 2007

Chuck Smith is my holiday hero.

We used to put up about 15,000 bulbs. Just multi colored bulbs though, nothing else. Completely covering everything on the house and yard. It looked liked Christmas threw up on our house. I wish I still had the time to do it...

Jesus and caroling and all that can go screw, I'll take my disgusting tacky lights.

(I do hate those blow up things though)
posted by teishu at 6:57 PM on December 18, 2007

From Tehanu's post above:

What's it take to make The Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights come to life?
Number of watts of electricity: 800,000

Let's just consider that one statistic for a second. 800,000W. 800 kilowatts. To put that in perspective, the electrical supply for my home is a 400 amp circuit - that's pretty beefy. 400A at 110V is 44 kW. The Osborne house's lights are using over 7,000 amps - or more than 17 times the power consumption of my house with EVERYTHING running. That's a small subdivision!

You want another way to look at that? 800 kW is equivalent to over 1,000 HP - that's some idea of how big of a generator set you'd need to run it. You prefer coal-burning metrics? How about roughly 750lb/hour? And since carbon makes up approximately 1/4th the atomic mass of carbon dioxide, and coal is more or less 100% carbon, that would be close to a ton and a half of CO2 per hour.
posted by kcds at 8:16 PM on December 18, 2007

This must mean the answer is YES. Right? Pretty? Lights? Yes?
posted by nax at 8:21 PM on December 18, 2007

Yeah, well, I was watching American History X last night and it seemed like the guy who raped Derek in prison was enjoying himself. But I'm not going to congratulate him for it.

Hold on here. You are equating some excessive Christmas lighting to prison rape?

You must be from the 'capital felony jaywalking' school of legal analysis or something.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 8:28 PM on December 18, 2007

Those inflatable things appear to be very prone to leakage. Around here, most of them have lost enough air to have fallen over, so it's just block after block with rows of Santas and snowmen lying around peoples' yards in ruin, like toppled idols. It makes the whole thing seem even more depressing than it already was.
posted by First Post at 9:05 PM on December 18, 2007

Those stats are not from when the lights were displayed at the Osborne house-- it's from the last link, from after they moved the lights to Disney, which is where they're on display now. I'm not clear on whether or not lights were added once it moved to Disney (I think so because the Disney photos look like they have a larger number of lights and are more colorful).

So really it's the light display at Disneyworld that's 17X your house. Still, I agree that it's a crazy amount of energy consumption. And I imagine the numbers for the Osborne display when it was still at their house in Arkansas was also mind-boggling, albeit smaller.
posted by Tehanu at 9:52 PM on December 18, 2007

Makes me wish I had my camera with me when my girlfriend and I were looking at Christmas lights. One house had the American flag in lights on their front porch. Nothing says the birth of Christ like American patriotism.
posted by robtf3 at 10:10 PM on December 18, 2007

The most depressing thing I ever saw was a deflated inflatable Santa Claus. It was like he just died in someone's yard.
posted by dirigibleman at 12:26 AM on December 19, 2007

These folks have nothing on a trio of neighbors up the street from me. Imagine all the hideousness, crammed into a tiny postage stamp-sized front yard! Times three! I'd take pics but I'm not sure I can safely look directly at it long enough to do so.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 3:28 AM on December 19, 2007

Those inflatable things appear to be very prone to leakage. Around here, most of them have lost enough air to have fallen over, so it's just block after block with rows of Santas and snowmen lying around peoples' yards in ruin, like toppled idols. It makes the whole thing seem even more depressing than it already was.

In my town, there are several blocks where these are very popular. I work from home so I'm often around the neighborhood in the daytime, and it seems to me that people leave them deflated during the work/school day, presumably so as not to be wasting the power when no one is around to view it.

Part of me is glad they are saving the power. But a bigger part of me is angry that I live near houses with residents who are okay with being "We inflate our tacky life-size light-up snow globe from 5 pm to 10 pm each night... but the rest of the time, we are pleased to let it just lie strewn across our lawn like a multi-colored tarpaulin full of trash" people.
posted by pineapple at 8:11 AM on December 19, 2007