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Fun winter holiday decorations?
So I asked this in the game giveaway thread and got some fun answers, and figured I'd ask the greater site at large!
So, what are the gaudiest, funniest winter yard decorations you can find or have seen? I'm talking giant inflatable leg lamps, Chewbacca's family dressed up for Life Day and other heartwarming scenes from the beloved classic Star Wars Christmas Special, Calvin-approved snowmen decorations, a crime scene around where Santa ran over grandma, a Calvin-approved snowman crime scene starring Olaf from Frozen as the victim.
If you have pictures, all the better! If not, we can still get a laugh out of hearing descriptions. And who knows? Maybe you can get some ideas for next year...
I actually think it was really cool and I love it, but apparently the neighborhood HATED IT and was like this close to going Salem Witch Trials on us.
But when I was in college, a friend's parents were throwing out this big 8' worn out fake outdoor Christmas Tree that you like anchored into the ground.
At the time, I was renting a room out of a house a couple of us college students had rented out, and so we had the bright idea of putting it out in the yard and spray painting the whole thing black and wrapping it with orange and purple Halloween lights.
We had a realistic looking plastic skull we put on top and just bundled some of the extra Halloween lights inside the skull so it glowed.
We were going for a Nightmare Before Christmas kind of thing, but what ended up happening is this thing looked like the most demonic dark yule tree.
We were at the edge of a forest/trail so we also had the bright idea of when we found animal bones and stuff from the woods we'd tie a little red ribbon on it and hang it on the tree outside.
One morning we woke up and there was a not insignificantly large murder of crows all over the tree and it looked like something straight out of an Edgar Allen Poe poem.
The families in the neighborhood hated it. someone had tried to knock it over and it was so anchored into the ground that they couldn't. Come to think of it I can't remember the exact circumstances of it's removal, but I do know one of the roommates took it down and some of us were disappointed.
It definitely had a dark energy with all those animal bones on it.
do you have any pictures of this??
I will have to see if I can dig any of them up, this was 15+ years ago, and the only place I know the photos existed were Facebook which I got rid of a couple years ago. I might have a backup of my facebook in an old hard drive.
(I'll copy over what I mentioned in the other thread to get the ball rolling if that's alright:)
My favorite non-traditional one is a neighbor of mine that has one of those giant Halloween skeletons out front.... and just leaves it there year-round. So after October they put up a Santa hat on it and some lights to make it festive, lol. For Easter it gets some bunny ears, etc.
There's also a community center near me that does a similar thing. They decorated for the holidays, but left some of their Halloween decorations like a big skeleton and some bats, and just gave the bats little Santa hats and gave the skeleton a white cloth over him and a carrot for a nose and now he's a very lean snowman. Went to go take pictures with Santa there recently with my family and loved that 'snowman'.
Edit: Here is a picture of the one in the community center!
I also have a neighbor (ok like down the road) with a giant skeleton that stays out all year, and a giant skeletal rooster. Both get decorated for other holidays but the big guy has been toppled by recent high winds so idk if he'll make it back up for a while.
Getting those back up has to be a pain, so I can see why they might want to just wait until Halloween to get him back up. Alternatively, they can always arrange a thematic memorial service though! If it was me, I'd make it look like a hit-and-run by Santa. (Then shot by Cupid for Valentine's Day, done in by leprechauns for St. Patrick's Day...)
I haven't looked too closely, they might have done something with him. He is just lying in the yard last I checked. Possibly beheaded from the fall. I'll drive past more slowly (they live off a not quite highway) and take a peek on my way home from the store
Yeah I don’t know how the neighbor manages during windy periods. I guess they would just take it down for a bit, but that must be a hassle.
Luckily for the community center they have some tall ceilings, so their “snowman” doesn’t have to worry about the outdoor climate.
Tbh it's done ok here for over a year we just had a particularly long bad day of winds earlier this month.
Thank you for the photo! I think the snowman costume is even better than the Santa hats. That photo gives me serious Nightmare Before Christmas vibes. I can see Jack and other Halloween Town residents making a bunch of decorations like that!
You’re totally right. It’s giving off major Jack-Skellington-doesn’t-know-how-to-properly-decorate-for-Christmas-so-this-is-what-he-came-up-with vibes.