A few Christmases ago our house and all of it’s cheesy Christmas decorations were featured on the 5:00, 6:00, and 11:00 news, but not because of our bad taste in design. We were “victims” in a story about  a local football coach who took middle schoolers out to vandalize holiday decorations. One station even called what he did to a neighbor’s yard “Christmas porn” and told viewers that we had a blow-up doll in our yard.

Uhm, not unless you were counting baby Jesus in the blow-up nativity set.  I blogged about it at the time. Looking back, I can see that I learned a lot of things from that event;

1) We’re all capable of screwing up.

2) It’s weird to have the media camped out in your front yard with your house as a backdrop for the live remote they’re doing for the 11:00 news.

3) You can’t trust the media to get the quote right. Sometimes they can misattribute your name to something someone else said — not that you necessarily disagree with what was said, but just that you would have said more eloquently.

4) Sometimes those misattributed quotes will get national attention. And business aquaintances from other states will hear about it on the radio. And that gets weird.

5) Our yard was really tacky!

This year we’ve upgraded our appearance.

We hired a professional landscaping/property management company to design and put up our lights. And apparently, it’s much better. We used to get calls from our neighbors to turn down the tacky music on the singing Christmas trees, now we get emails saying, “Wow! You’ve really outdone yourselves. Thanks for dressing up the neighborhood!”

But we also get calls from friends we haven’t heard of in awhile. Andre and Laura didn’t recognize our house when they drove past it because the blow-ups were missing. Though we hadn’t talked to them in a year, they made a special call to mourn the loss of the cheesy collection we had going.

My son misses the big blue blow-up soldier, and still wants to find a place to put out the three singing trees. I have to admit, it was always fun talking about how Santa, Frosty, and even Jesus, Mary and Joseph, looked a little tipsy (those blow-up never stood up straight!).

My husband hated putting (and trying to keep) them up a so much, that most of the neighborhood knew it was the season, not because of the Christmas carols he played, but because of his Christmas cussing. They’d help contribute to his Christmas joy frustration by having drunken parties at their house where they waited until we went to bed and then they’d sneak over and install a new blow-up in our yard while we were sleeping.

That was my first enounter with the toy soldier–the Sunday morning I got up extra early for church because I was teaching Sunday school, snuck quietly down the stairs so I wouldn’t wake my family up, and then screamed my brains out when I saw this six foot blow up staring through my window. (They’re much scarier when you’re not expecting them!)

So which do you prefer? The yard with all the blow-ups or the professional lighting? And what’s your Christmas yard look like? Any favorite Christmas yard decorations you can’t part with though you know you should?

~Jennifer