DISQUS

AMERICAblog: It's Christmas time in the city

  • Clint · 1 year ago
    Love it!

    Merry Christmas John, from your friends in Georgia!!!
  • Rich · 1 year ago
    I used to live across the street, pre-Santa.
  • John Aravosis · 1 year ago
    Okay that's funny
  • ProgressiveTroll · 1 year ago
    Mr. Grinch and Mr. Claus are the two best decorations ever John. I'm jealous! My tree is pretty nice, everyone that comes over is awed by it, so I guess I have nothing to be jealous about.
  • Keith_in_Southwest_France · 1 year ago
    In this part of France you see the Santa that you show climbing up the ladder with a noose around his neck hanging from trees and barn door openings. Since my partner does Pere Noel as a hobby for the various communes in the area, this upsets him every time he sees one displayed like this.
  • lucky hussein · 1 year ago
    the grinch is cool, anyone who doesn't like it is, well.... a grinch. and that house in baltimore does NOT have too many lights - you can't have too many - what the hell, it's pretty cool, once a year. i'm sure all the kids love it.
  • Older_Wiser · 1 year ago
    Those are great, John, even though I'm more restrained here in NC. : )

    Getting ready to decorate the inside of the house, although I enjoy the many outside lights of neighbors who can afford the electric bill. There's always a house in any neighborhood which outdoes all the others, of course. Fun!
  • Sugapea · 1 year ago
    I love it, John!
    Just imagine how many kids you bring joy to.
    How big is the Santa?
  • John Aravosis · 1 year ago
    The hanging Santa is like 4 feet, maybe 4.5
  • UncleGlenny · 1 year ago
    Well, no wonder they're upset! The Grinch doesn't appear to be wearing pants!

    p.s. My dog, a shepherd-colie mix, has fur tufts at the end of her toes and gets called Grinch Feet.
  • HeartlandLiberal · 1 year ago
    John, you would be right at home in little French Lick, Indiana, down in the southwestern part of the state. We were down there last year the week before Christmas for a few days to blow a few bucks at the new Casinos (the French Lick Hotel and the round Baden hotel, which was restored a few years ago, and is considered a national architectural landmark).

    We drove around the neighborhoods of small lower and middle income homes that hang on the step hill sides to the south of the town, which is nestled in a valley. You have not seen 'yard art' till you have been there for Christmas. Almost every yard had not one, but many figures, many of them older plastic free-standing Christmas figures, but the in thing last year was apparently the inflatable stuff like your Grinch. There was even a multi-part inflatable creche in one front yard, with rotating parts. More than one yard was not satisfied to have just a few items, and the ENTIRE YARD, front to back, street to house, side to side, was filled with Christmas decorations of the gaudiest and kitchiest imaginable sort. You could not step in any direction with stomping either the baby Jesus or a lamb, or some other critter, real or imagined.

    John, given your Grinch, you would be right at home visiting French Lick, Indiana around this time of year.

    P.S, for those who follow basketball, think Larry Bird, native of French Lick. The town was a hotbed of gambling and was frequented by the famous and the infamous, from politicians to mobsters, in the first couple of decades of the last century, but is now a sleepy little place revived to some extent over the past few years by the establishment of legal casino gambling. I suspect the current financial collapse is going to hit them hard. We are trying to prepare for retirement, and have blown about $20K in the past six months getting the house and all the appliances and the geothermal in new order, so blowing a little at a casino for Christmas this year is not an option.

    Here is the Christmas tree at the West Baden hotel last year.

    West Baden Hotel Christmas Tree
  • kh7463 · 1 year ago
    When I think French Lick, I think of nudist colony... down that way somewhere... I'm a Hoosier, just in the non-hillbilly part of the state.
  • Richard in Royal Oak · 1 year ago
    I've always wanted to do a display like this:

    Sleigh on the roof, reindeer looking down over the edge of the roof, one red mitten hanging from the gutter, Santa sprawled out face down on the ground in the bushes.

    I figure my neighbors would burn my house down!
  • Indigo · 1 year ago
    The French cleverly disguise the hillybilly element in their culture by speaking French.
  • sisterfaith · 1 year ago
    Go for it John! I'm looking forward to your inaugural surprise!!
  • gumboman · 1 year ago
    Now I know its the Christmas season, John has the Grinch up!
  • kh7463 · 1 year ago
    There is a house near me where the front of the house (thankfully a ranch style) is totally covered in white lights, along with a few trees. I keep meaning to take a picture of it.
  • sdr · 1 year ago
    The bathhouse here in San Diego always has that same Grinch up on the roof over looking the entrance every holiday season.
  • John Aravosis · 1 year ago
    LOL