Ever since I stopped celebrating Christmas I have very little stress around the holidays. It's great; I totally recommend abandoning Christmas. But even though I don't have to deal with things like shopping and traffic, I'm not totally free of the holiday madness. I am constantly reminded of the stupidity of the season by shining beacons of ignorance. I'm talking about Christmas decorations. Please take a few minutes and share with me the hell that is Christmas in Suburbia!

I guess the first thing on my list of annoyances is this wonderful new decorating trend that involves giant inflatable figures. Great, now your house looks like a car dealership. "How much for the `98 Cadillac, buddy? Oh, it's not for sale? Sorry. Well, maybe you really should sell it, take the money and go buy yourself some taste."

These have become popular because people are lazier than ever. Why should you spend an afternoon on a cold winter day decorating the house when you can spend ten minutes inflating a giant turd? They're actually too big to be considered "cute". What's even worse is that having just one inflatable monstrosity in your yard never seems to be enough. You might have noticed they are also highly prone to deflation. After seeing armies of these things lining the streets, I'm left with one question...Where is the giant, inflatable Jesus? We're celebrating Christmas, right?

Here is a lovely set-up just a hundred or so yards from my place.



I think the snowman below has passed-out drunk. How sad. What's worse is that it seems like Santa (right) has actually drank himself to death, for he lies like carrion on the front lawn.



Even though you can't be lazier than decorating with inflatable figures, some people still try. Here's my favorite; a single strand of lights that runs across the gutter...



"But wait! My roof is shorter than the length of lights. Whatever will I do with the excess? I've got it! I'll use it to decorate the tree on the side of my house." Yeah, that single loop around the width of the tree really brings out its shape. Good job, loser.

Some people could be good decorators, but their creativity is impeded by mild retardation (or perhaps a nervous disorder). The end result is a shaky, spastic zig-zagging, cris-crossing mess. It reminds me of those science experiments where they give spiders LSD to see what kind of webs they make. Too bad. Nice try though...Not.




The house below was clearly decorated by someone with severe depression. It's a good attempt, but it fell short and the end result is very uninviting. You have to wonder how someone can add rainbow colored lights to their house yet somehow make it look darker and scarier. The under-lighting effect really brings out the Christmas gloom. Here's a suggestion, unplug the lights until next Halloween, then see what a hit your house is.



Uh, yeah, I'm not even going to get into this next one...



And no Christmas would be complete without the guy on the block who goes completely ape-shit...



It's like the guy wants to land a plane in his front lawn. Actually, nothing would make me happier than to see a plane slide across the lawn, mangle and melt all those shitty little plastic figures, then smash through the front of his house. Of course, he makes the classic mistake of mixing the nativity scene with Santa decorations. Sorry, Kris Kringle wasn't the fourth wise man who brought Jesus a X-box 360. Hey buddy, here's a good idea: How about you invest your Christmas bonus instead of using it to pay your holiday electric bill? Thanks for the extra light pollution, jerk.

You know what else drives me nuts? Flashing lights. They are annoying, period. Here's a quick movie I took of the neighbor's house. Ask yourself if this captures the Christmas spirit. Oh yeah, there is sound.

Finally, there's this asshole...

Click above for a full size image of his jolly array.

So, I said to myself, "This guy collects Santas…Fine…But, he's got to store them for 11 months out of the year. How much space does that take?" Then I started to think, "Shit! I have to keep half my stuff in storage because I'm too poor to afford an apartment big enough, and this jackass uses more space for his Santa collection than I use to live in? Fuck me!"

But I had to be sure, so I did a little math.

My room is 8' x 10' x 9'. This comes out to 720 cubic feet of space. But nobody could completely fill all that and still live and breathe, so I need to make a more sensible evaluation of the space I use. I decided to figure out approximately how much space I was using for "stuff" per each wall of my room:

Wall 1: 2' x 5' x 6' = 60 CFT
Wall 2: 2' x 5' x 6' = 60 CFT
Wall 3: 1.5' x 4' x 4' = 24 CFT
Wall 4: 3' x 7' x 3' = 63 CFT
Total = 207 CFT

So, I use about 207 cubic feet of space for my possessions, balanced in a way that keeps me just on the safe edge of claustrophobia. Let's see what goof-nuts over here is using for "Santa storage." I imagine a guy who collects Santas will probably keep them in their original boxes, so I tried to come up with an average box size (guessing from the size of the figures in the photo) to make calculations from:

3' x 1.5' x 1.5' = 6.75 CFT

Let's call this "medium size." There are also small and large Santas. I decided that small sizes would be half the medium and large sizes would be twice the medium. Then, I counted 5 small Santas, 29 medium Santas, and 3 large Santas, for a total of 37 Santas. (I'm sure there will be 38 in a couple of days!) Here's the breakdown:

Small: 5(6.75 x 0.5) = 16.875 CFT
Meduim: 29(6.75)= 195.75 CFT
Large: 3(6.75 x 2)= 40.5 CFT
Total = 253.125 CFT

Whoa! Lemme get this straight...This jerk-off uses 46 cubic feet of space more than me just to store his lame-ass plastic Santas every year?! Gimme a break!

You know, I usually complain when I see Santa and Baby Jesus on the same lawn together. That's just ignorant. After all, it is a religious holiday (notice the "Christ" in "Christmas"). However, when you have a phalanx of false idols on your lawn, that's just plain EVIL!

The best part about this guy's Christmas layout is that it really drives home the fact that I'm poor. Thanks a lot dick. "Ho-Fucking-Ho" to you too.