How many Christmas yard ornaments is too many I ask? (New Pictures)

by erynw 28 Replies latest jw friends

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  erynw

  There is a house in my neighborhood that has to hold the record for christmas decorations in their yard. The neighborhood I live in has one road in and out so we can't avoid this eyesore.

  I swear, they have every inflatable, plastic, lit up, wire formed, animated yard decoration that has ever been manufactured. It looks like K-Mart threw up in their yard.

  They have enough lights on the house, bushes, trees, eaves, roof, fence to signal the mothership into a safe landing from any galaxy in the universe. The glow from their house rivals the light beam coming from the pyramid in Las Vegas, except the glow more resembles the afterglow of a nuclear blast than a beam shooting into space.

  There is a slide show, with music, projecting onto their garage. Since we live in Hooterville, it's the closest thing we have to a drive-in theater so our Saturday nights aren't so boring.

  And, the theme, if you can call it a theme, seems to be something of a hybrid between ultra religious reverence to the miracle of the virgin birth and the miracle of 1960's children's christmas TV specials. Everyone is present and accounted for, frosty, rudolph, the grinch, the chipmunks, that little elf that wanted to be a dentist, little tiny baby jesus, mary, and joseph, the wise men, candy canes, some camels, a donkey, and a polar bear wearing a santa hat.

  About all that is missing, that I can see, is the guy who was always yelling at Alvin the chipmunk.

  I think I'll go find my plastic santa head and stick on the front door and call it done.
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  erynw
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  OUTLAW

  ..1 million!..It`s in the bible!!.....................OUTLAW
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  BrentR

  Sounds like a good plan!

  I do not have any neighbors close enough to even see my house so I don't do much outside christmas "bling". Our local news media runs contests for extravagant yard displays and people here also go completely nuts. I don't mind that as much as the people that still have thier lights up and on in April.
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  Vivamus

  It almost looks like a yard sale !
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  WTWizard

  I sure wish some of the yards in my area would look like that!

  I say that you have too many when they start interfering with each other's appearance and functionality. But, before you run into that, you run into the point of diminishing returns. This is explained by what happens when you add one more. Each additional unit added has a fixed cost of purchase, work in setting it up, and running it. The first one has its value in adding to the appearance. When you add other pieces, they increase the value. However, at a certain point, adding one more piece will add less value. This continues until you reach the point of having them interfering with each other, and additional units at that point add negative value.

  The optimal level of decoration in the yard is reached when the total additional cost of putting it in equals the total additional value that piece will add. The total cost is the fixed amount of money you spend buying, maintaining, and running it (purchase price is divided by the number of seasons you reasonably expect to use it), and the work spent installing it. The total value is determined by how much that piece adds to the effect and its desirability. If the marginal cost of adding that piece is still less than the marginal value, then you still haven't reached the optimal point.

  It looks like those pictures have reached that optimal point. They are saturated with Christmasy appearance, and yet they have not yet reached that point where they interfere with each other or make a total disarray. Once they reach the point of disarray and crowd each other, I would like to see them teleported to neighborhoods around here where people's idea of a full decoration has gone down from a well-lit yard down to a damn electric candle in the windows.
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  jgnat

  What blows me away is the green grass.

  I am sorry, but as far as glitz, glimmer, and hick decoration go, you have nothing on Candy Cane Lane, Edmonton. We even have an entire street, website, calendar, and society dedicated to it's preservation. Pictures are near the bottom of the site.

  http://www.ee.ualberta.ca/~kees/cclane/

  I do notice your homeowner is evolving towards composition and theme. There was an attempt, for instance, to group the snowmen together. Look for greater improvements in the coming years.
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  yknot

  But .....I bet the children love it! Ideally it would be nice to have a tastful theme and design, but again I bet the owner is doing it for the kiddies!
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  Sad emo

  Kewl - the more the merrier!!

  As long as the rest of the neighbouhood isn't left in darkness due to the drain on the electricity supply lol!

  There used to be a house near me where a boy had leukaemia and his mum added a new decoration every year that he lived. Folks started coming from all over town just to look at this house and gave her money donations which were passed to leukaemia research
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  erynw

  What blows me away is the green grass.

  Yeah, one of the joys of living in the South. We do get snow once in a while.

  Oh, and many thanks to eclipse for taking the pictures.