Agree or Disagree?: Inflatable yard Christmas decor is tacky

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:They don't make me happy. They remind me of all the junk people buy at the holidays and how much of it winds up in landfills and also how much oil and fuel gets used up shipping it to people's homes so they can do this stuff. I get some people use them year after year, but some people don't, and also it becomes another thing that people compete over so what starts as one house with a few tacky inflatables because entire neighborhoods full of them. Yes it is bad for the environment.

Also, there are lots of ways to make kids smile. You can hug them! Bake some cookies! Say you love them! You really do not have to buy a generator and a $100 piece of tacky plastic on Amazon to make your child smile during the holiday season.

Sorry to be a killjoy. I love holidays and celebrating with family and friends and enjoying food and I even like plenty of decorations, just not the plastic crap ones, and the yard inflatables are sort of the poster child for "plastic Christmas crap." I'm not a grinch but I can't get behind these.

Coming from a person who probably has a too big of a house and hires out lawn care...

Wrong on both counts. I live in a condo, don't have a lawn at all. I don't even own a car. I love how the responses to my post have all been "whatever, you're probably a hypocrite." But I'm actually not.

I bet a lot of you talking about how much you love the inflatable lawn ornaments also lecture people about recycling and claim to be environmentalists. But you'll hide behind "but the kids like it!" when you want to buy all your plastic crap from Amazon. Guess what, kids don't understand the implications of filling our lives with a metric ton of plastic waste that must be shipped using fossil fuels to arrive on your doorstep -- it's your job to know that.

The "it's for the kids" argument is particularly galling when you realize that the accumulation of all this plastic crap, delivered via the burning of yet more fossil fuels, is precisely what is destroying this planet "for the kids."

Anyway, I don't care if I'm a killjoy. You people need to hear this.

I just had printed 100 boxes of trial exhibits. I killed a small Brazilian rainforest, polluted a stream near the paper factory, used fedex and guzzled gas to have them transported, etc,. Can’t wait to get home and set up my inflatables!

... congratulations?

It's weird that the people who love plastic inflatables are the "good guys" on this thread.

Weird indeed … they probably put up inflatable assault weapons in areas that are second amendment cult strongholds as a symbol of good will among men (forget about women and where all other gender identities are banned) …

Hoping the ghost of Christmas Future visits them with visions of the environmental destruction by plastics, foreign sweatshops filled with children who should be in school, aesthetic assaults on our already often bleak urban and suburban landscapes and spiritual sacrilege towards the meaning of Christmas …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The typical yard inflatable uses 50-200 watts of electricity per hour of use. Most people deflate them at least some of the time (overnight) but will keep them inflated for at least 6-10 hours so that they get maximum enjoyment out of them (plus they look pretty dumb when they are deflated on the lawn).

If you have a bunch of these, that's a huge uptick in your power usage during the holiday season and I hope you're cutting back somewhere else to try and offset it. Or using solar powered generators in order to be carbon neutral.

Christmas lights can also consume a ton of energy (about 25 watts per 100 light strand, and most outdoor displays use a lot more than that). But not as much as the big inflatables, which will be at the tip of the range above. You can also get solar powered light strands, which I highly recommend for outdoors as they also streamline the wiring issues.

What is this? The 1990s? My LED Christmas lights barely sip electricity. Does anyone buy incandescent anymore?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the pp upthread who said it’s lazy and cop out decor. It reminds me of inflatables you’d see in front of a seedy used car dealership or Denny’s. I’m shocked at how many of my neighbors have them. Might as well add pink flamingos too.

Lol. You might be thrilled to know that there are all kinds of celebratory decorations, clothes, and baubles that COMBINE pink flamingos with Christmas themes!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The whole point of Christmas decorations is to be wonderfully tacky. Embrace the tacky!

I beg to differ.

The whole point of Christmas decorations is to point us towards the hope that Jesus’ birth brought to our fallen world. I personally find commercial and tacky Christmas decorations depressing.

However, if tacky commercial Xmas decor brings joy to some then let it be.

The Annunciation was in August. Therefore Jesus was born in May, not December.

You'd think the Bible thumping PP would know that by now.

Well the church did a pretty good job covering up the fact that the real reasons for Christmas decorations were to strike a compromise with the Pagans and absorb their winter fertility rites, so it's understandable they don't know the true origin of Christmas decorations.

Yep. I mean, why are we still conceding Christmas to Christians as if it is the only reason/way to celebrate. You go ahead with whatever you choose but it is not THE reason for everyone's season. Nor even the original reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The whole point of Christmas decorations is to be wonderfully tacky. Embrace the tacky!

I beg to differ.

The whole point of Christmas decorations is to point us towards the hope that Jesus’ birth brought to our fallen world. I personally find commercial and tacky Christmas decorations depressing.

However, if tacky commercial Xmas decor brings joy to some then let it be.

The Annunciation was in August. Therefore Jesus was born in May, not December.

You'd think the Bible thumping PP would know that by now.

Well the church did a pretty good job covering up the fact that the real reasons for Christmas decorations were to strike a compromise with the Pagans and absorb their winter fertility rites, so it's understandable they don't know the true origin of Christmas decorations.

Yep. I mean, why are we still conceding Christmas to Christians as if it is the only reason/way to celebrate. You go ahead with whatever you choose but it is not THE reason for everyone's season. Nor even the original reason.

Logic here is confused

Yes The timing of Christmas holiday was to honor pagan ritual around winter solstice as early Christians sought to honor local traditions as well -/ but pagan customs are not the reason for modern lights: the lights are supposed to represent that the birth of Jesus made reconciliation possible and that God is the light of the world.

And as a Christian I agree that the holidays are not monopolized by Christian faith - many faith traditions have special holidays at this time of year. However, most of the most tacky holiday decorations do distort symbols of the Christian faith. The modern Santa Claus derives from Dutch immigrant culture in New York related to Sinta Klaas on Dec 5. That Dutch tradition of giving small gifts in sweet funny ways with modest gifts wrapped up in many layers of paper containing hand written poems about the recipient gradually morphed into ugly emphasis on splashy material gifts with little creativity in way gifts are given. Coca Cola gave us the first commercial visual for the contemporary version of St Nicolas and it has gradually become more grotesque.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate them
My kids think they look cheap and stupid

Your kids have class, and inflatables are cheap and stupid.

[Anonymous]

This trend will end.

[Anonymous]

Omg, not only does my neighbor have 25 + of these, but one bear is playing a jingle bell playlist that loops all day. Not only do I have to see this , but now I have to listen to jingle bell rock in my home? Like Groundhog Day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This trend will end.

I hope this thread is the catalyst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, but it’s still great.

Agreed. Tacky AND great, not mutually exclusive things.

[Anonymous]

We have a yard full of them and sure, I think they're tacky but it's adorable seeing little kids stopping to look or cars slowing down with windows open, you can hear the kids talking. That's why we do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Several neighbors have inflatable Christmas decor in their front yard, and it is so tacky blowing around in the wind. Does anyone else find this method of decorating tacky and cheap looking?

Tacky, cheap, ugly, annoying, tasteless and environmentally dumb. Its the second worst thing for yard, next to chain link fence.

Agree very tacky. And look awful in a puddle in the daytime. I don’t care if your kids love them. Kids love all kinds of tacky things.

[Anonymous]

This thread has inspired me. I'm looking for an inflatable for my front yard now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread has inspired me. I'm looking for an inflatable for my front yard now.

Same here. Just bought a snow globe one and it’s an instant hit.

[Anonymous]

I don't care how people decorate - but I think of all of this eventually ending up in a landfill and it makes me sad. We're all guilty to some extent - I don't have inflatables but we do have christmas lights, etc.