Neighbor’s Yard, I’m not done with you.

While passing the house in our neighborhood with the inflatable Christmas decorations on the way home last night I slowed down. I slowed down so I could properly radiate my rage upon their humble dwelling. The uninformed spectator might have thought I was slowing down to enjoy the yard display but the discerning viewer would have felt the air temperature rise, if ever so slightly. As I slowly lorded pass the house I half expected Dawn to point out I was being an ass (I am often being an ass).

Instead I was surprise when she informed me that my complaints about the house were half-assed. I had done a poor job pointing out all that was wrong with it. So blinded by my rage was I that I failed to notice whole extra dimensions of wrongness that exist. In short, my observations were incomplete. Dawn started to rattle down the list of things she saw wrong with the house that I had failed to mention. I endeavor to recount a few of them here.

The theme of the yard is a runway or landing strip for Santa. To paint the mental picture they have these two rows of blinking lights which delineate a runway through their yard. Various inflatable yard decorations fill the rest of the yard.

One such decoration is an inflatable Santa in a plane, presumably coming in for a landing. This disturbes Dawn to a greater extent than it does me. Evidently Dawn is a strict traditionalist in mythological transportation matters. Santa rides in a sleigh and not in a small airplane. Think of your carbon footprint Santa. Standing next to the runway is another inflatable Santa. Dawn points out how can Santa be riding in his blasphemous plane if he is also standing on the ground waiting for himself to land? She is not down with Santa clones or time traveling Santas or any other rationale for Santa multiplicity.

Near the runway is also an inflatable snowman that is standing next to an inflatable penguin. The penguin was laying horizontal on the ground at the snowman’s feet. The first time we visually parsed this we came to the conclusion that foul play was afoot. But thinking back I think different events must have transpired. My new theory is that the penguin looked around and realized he/she was part of a Christmas decorating travesty and wisely choose to take his/her own life. As we were driving by the snowman probably just discovered the recently deceased bird. I can only hope the snowman realizes the wisdom in the penguin’s actions and decided to follows suit tonight.

At an even greater distance from the runway there are both inflatable SpongeBob SquarePants and inflatable Grinch. Dawn considers this juxtaposition of alternate Christmas universe characters with blatant children’s cartoon character marketing to be a mortal sin. The mere fact that there are Antarctic birds associating with multiple North-pole dwelling mythological beings and despicable cartoon characters and Dr Seuss characters and snowmen indicates to me a certain lack of focus of vision while constructing the tableaux.

The final insult was revealed to us as we turned our eyes upwards….up on the roof….there arose such a clatter…we spied a third Santa. Three inflatable Santa in one display - unforgivable. Dawn was super-unsatisfied with this final observation.