Is This Attractive?

During the holiday season it is customary for many people to celebrate by decorating the outside of their houses with what most people call "Christmas Lights". There are many a variety of these so called "Christmas Lights"; for instance there are twinkle lights, multi-color lights, icicle lights, big lights, small lights, and so on and so forth.

Usually people start putting up their lights around December 1st. Now, there is also a group of people that light to jump on the Christmas decor as early as Thanksgiving, but studies show these people only account for about 25% of the population. And of course there's always one person, who could be referred to as an "Odd Ball", that seems to keep their lights up YEAR-ROUND. Those people aren't too very popular. At least to me.

The point of my story isn't to embarrass year-round Christmas Lighters, or to even talk about Christmas lights in general. The point of my story is to discuss a new trend that is becoming more and more popular in Christmas decorating, and that is "Inflatables". Are we serious? Have we come to this? People are putting giant blown-up figurines that really belong on the side of the highway advertising for car dealerships (see Acceptance is the First Step: http://ruckerblog.blogspot.com/2004/09/acceptance-is-first-step.html) in their front yards. Just go to Garden Ridge and you'll see that there are HUNDREDS of varieties of these unusual decorations that use most of the oxygen in the store to power themselves; the worst being an animated Santa that goes up and down an inflated chimney. Now, if you have one of these inflatables, I'm not criticizing you necessarily; my major gripe with them is that some people think it's OK to ONLY have one of these inflatables in your yard and have no other lights. That, is a no no. I've driven by several houses who have simply stuck an inflatable tree in front of their house and assumed that was enough. It's not. You see, there are many people who put a LOT of effort into their lights and simply plugging in your little tree is actually very insulting. It's also not that attractive.

In life, you can usually tell if something you're doing is right by asking yourself one simple question: "Is this attractive?". Now, when you ask, you must be completely honest with yourself. For instance, when you woke up this morning and decided to wear what you did, you probably asked yourself "Is this attractive?" and then made changes or stayed the same based on your answer. Well, this rule should apply the same or even more to what you do to the outside of your house. So next time you go outside and plug in that giant inflatable snowman, ask yourself "Is this attractive?" and then when you finally say to yourself, "No.", go out and buy some real Christmas lights and then spend a few hours putting them up. You'll be glad you did. I think.

"A little effort goes a long way."