Monday, January 03, 2011

Christmas, Part 1: Neighbor

I have to begin the tale of our Christmas adventures this year with our backyard neighbor.  They are legendary in our neighborhood for going absolutely crazy with their Christmas decorations.  Think Clark Griswold in his 80s, and that's Mr. Dalton.  But their decorations really helped us get in the Christmas spirit, and Elias LOVED them!  They began putting up their back yard decorations on NOVEMBER 8TH, so we were able to enjoy them for a long time too.  This was the view from our rear windows (Click to enlarge.):

And they had their full front yard decorations finished by the Monday after Thanksgiving (Click to enlarge.):


Absolutely absurd.  The above picture is without the lights on, so you may not get the full effect, but I think you can see better the sheer volume of decorations.  I believe I count 14 inflatables in this picture...  Add the 6 from the back yard, and that makes an even 20.  Sheesh.  Elias' hands-down favorite was the Santa in the helicopter on the far right of the picture.  He would ask EVERY DAY to go see Santa in the helicopter.  We went 2 or 3 times a week to go look at the display.  There was actually a little more - a plastic nativity set, another spiral tree, and I think a Santa - on the other side of the driveway on the right, but I couldn't fit it into the picture.

So although I wouldn't want to decorate my own house like this, it was really fun having it in our backyard to just open up the blinds and enjoy!  Elias still runs to the window and looks for the snowmen and lights.  Sorry, bud.  Not till next year!

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