Sunday, November 28, 2010

White Trash Christmas

I hate Christmas. You know why?!? Because it's so commercialized and during this time of the year, the worst in people comes out (this blog for example).  Each year I seem to end up buying a bunch of gifts for people that I really don't even like.  Truth be told, I even hate sending Christmas cards. During this time of the year I'm expected to say "Happy Holidays", "Merry Christmas", "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Chaka Khan" to people that I'd much rather tell to fuck off. And not only that, each year we're all inundated with images of shit on television and on the Internet that major corporations have decided are "must have" items for that particular holiday season.  And while I don't necessarily yield to the peer pressures of buying all the electronic crap that I simply "must have" and can't supposedly live without, I don't like being "pressured" to do so.
 This past week on Thanksgiving Day, I decided to take advantage of the 75 degree temperatures here in South Carolina by getting some exercise.  For those of you that don't know, I like to walk around my neighborhood and get as much exercise as I can.  I'm trying to eat healthy and maintain a somewhat active lifestyle.  I ate so much on Thanksgiving Day I felt like I should have been stuffed on someones table with an apple in my mouth.  Anyway, before I stuffed myself silly; while I was out and about in my neighborhood, I noticed one of my neighbors putting up Christmas decorations.  He lives a few doors down from me and he's a friendly enough guy. Sure he's missing a couple of teeth; but I'm sure that just means he doesn't have to buy as much toothpaste as the rest of us. He was lining his driveway with these big plastic candy canes and he'd already hung what looked to be thousands of Christmas lights all the way around his house and all over his yard. He had boxes and boxes of what appeared to be oversized Christmas ornaments stacked neatly in his driveway. He put up a huge red and green merry go round in the middle of his yard.  He also had displays of Santa Claus and his reindeer and a few large plastic snowmen in his yard as well.  As a matter of fact, he had so much shit in his yard, it looked like a forest of cheap holiday decorations or the makings of a yard sale in the north pole.  So I walked by my neighbors Christmas shrine and went for an extended walk.  I wanted to take a picture of it with my cellphone, but I didn't want to be too obvious. I actually ended up walking to a grocery store. It was about 4 miles from my house and when I went I picked up some last minute ingredients for my wife to use in making our Thanksgiving dinner. I was able to kill two birds with one stone with that walk, because I needed to pick that stuff up and I needed the exercise too.  When I did walk home, a couple of hours later, my neighbor was still decorating his house and yard.  As a matter of fact, he spent the entire day doing that.
 My neighbor put up so many lights, at night his house could be mistaken for an airport, complete with runway and landing lights. As a matter of fact, if his neighbors shut off all their lights at night; they can probably read in their homes by the tacky ass lights he put up in his yard.  Seriously, dude went a bit overboard.
 Mind you, I don't want to be mean.  But let's be honest, I've never been a person accused of saying too little anyway.  My neighbor is a classic example of southern white trash. I've seen yards like his time and time again. I have no doubt that he probably has relatives in the Appalachians, the kind of people immortalized in the classic movie "Deliverance".  He and his wife look so much alike, they could be brother and sister....or at least cousins. They're the type of people that if four of them are standing together, they don't have a full set of teeth between them.  You know, some of Jeff Foxworthy's folks.  Honestly, I probably have just as many white trash friends as I have ghetto friends.  They're good people for the most part......for the most part anyway.

You know what really annoys me about my white trash neighbors?!? They're gonna leave those decorations up until February.  Goddamn them!!!
Who is Santa anyway?!? Some fat old drunken moonshining redneck?!? Do you think he over decorates his home too?!? I swear I hate Christmas!!!

Oh yeah, bah humbug!!!

66 comments:

  1. there are WAY too many people who over-do it with the Christmas lights... when i see those houses with all that tacky plastic shit all over their lawns... and ten hundred thousand twinkle lights, i cant help but think of that movie, "the national lampoons christmas vacation" with chevy chase, and i laugh... none of my neighbours have set off the tacky meter... YET.

    however, there are a few of them who leave the lights up until march, or may... and light them up every night! lol

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  2. I don't live in a White neighborhood, so I can't talk about the White trash....But I co-sign about the "I hate Christmas" part. Except I dislike it for other reasons.... But I definitely feel this post.

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  3. Michelle when I lived in New Orleans I used to have a neighbor who decorated the bushes in their front yard with red, white and green Christmas lights; and they didn't touch those lights until February. In February the only reason that they took them off was to change them to purple, gold and green "Mardi Gras" lights; and they didn't take those lights off the tree until well after Mardi Gras Day.

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  4. Dirty Red I do live in a predominantly white neighborhood in a suburb of Charleston, South Carolina. There are more rednecks in South Carolina than there are Big Macs at McDonalds.

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  5. Happy Chaka Khan? LOL!!

    I live in Texas so I see a lot of this going around. I can always count on you for a good laugh. :-)

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  6. Kandia I swear it's like living next to Roseanne or one of Jeff Foxworthy's cousins.

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  7. Ok, feel free to laugh your asses off when I say this... I think the guy in the second to last pic is my ex.... really..

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  8. You didn't buy him those shorts did you Joanna?!" Because if you did and you paid more than a dollar, you got taken.

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  9. I hate Christmas also. I especially hate it when you have to pull names at work and purchase a gift for a co-worker valued at $20. Every year there was always a big fight about the gifts. The expectation of white people and black people are different. The white co-workers gave the "it's the thought that count gifts" and black people gave the "this is what I expect in return gifts." Even with the hurt feelings it caused they continued the gift exchange each year. My children and I boycott Christmas every year because it has become too commercialized. We have freed ourselves of this burden.

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  10. I do not hate Christmas. But I hate Christmas decoration left up until February. Or put up before Thanksgiving.

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  11. Queen of Hearts I have worked in an office and had a staff of at least 15 people for the last 12 years. For about half of those years I've made it a point to purchase something for everyone that reports to me. Sometimes it was Successories calendars and sometimes it was Yankee Candles. I remember one year spending over $300.00 and getting a $10.00 gift in return. While I realize it's the thought that counts, I didn't think a lot of thought went into that cookie jar I got.

    But then again, there were years that I got some really nice stuff too.

    Last year I participated in a "Secret Santa" at work and this year I'll probably do the same thing.

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  12. TripleZmom thank you for stopping by my humble abode. Please do come again.

    Some of my neighbors are quite trifling, but many of them will put up tasteful decorations. I'm surprised though that my HOA doesn't get stupid with them. If I leave my trashcan out overnight instead of in my garage I'll get fined; but they can go hogwild with all that crap and not get a second look? That just doesn't make sense to me.

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  13. I love the Christmas holidays, but some people have no sense of what the holiday is all about and then there are those that go all out with decorations. Dont get me wrong I understand why you feel like you do about Christmas.

    I reside in a mostly all white neighborhood, but I happy to say so far I have not seen anything as worst as the pictures in this post.LOL I'm sure there is some white trash in my neighborhood I just haven't seen their holiday decor or yards.

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  14. Chet it doesn't have to be a holiday for some of these motherfuckers to have SOMETHING on display. If it's not Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, the Fourth of July or Easter decorations; it'll be a bunch of ceramic gnomes, a few stone rabbits or dogs or even a woodland scene or two. Why in the hell does someone need fake plants in their yard next to the real ones?!?

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  15. I must admit, I love driving around the neighborhoods near me and looking at the displays, but they are all done really nicely, for the most part.

    My father's bitch (oops I mean, wife) loves to decorate the yard all year round. Always has some dumb seasonal flag up. Little benches, frogs, pinwheels, all kinds of dumb shit. I don't know what is worse, those quaint little "country" looking things OR the shrines to Mary and various saints that the old school Italians used to put in their yards in my grandma's old neighborhood!

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  16. I decorate my lawn with grass Joanna; and when it gets too long, I'll take the lawnmower to it.

    I think that's the way to roll.

    I wouldn't mind the Christmas decorations so much if some of them didn't threaten to tan me if I looked at them longer than a minute or two.

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  17. Christmas decor isn't THAT bad - maybe this post was a result of seeing the way Auburn came back on some other team earlier in the week.

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  18. Awww dude c'mon Christmas is GREAT!!! *in Tony the Tiger voice* LOL! I do understand how it can be overwhelming especially the excessive Christmas lights. I hate that white elephant game at the office with the twist. One year I finally got something good and the twist was the last person gets to take whatever gift they want. OMG!!! I had the BEST gift. I had to keep it together and act like it didn't matter that I had to give up my gift. But inside I wanted to beat the mess out of that person and act a dang fool at work over a fountain! Bwhahahahahaha!!

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  19. Reggie, my mom was a little bit off the hook with the decorations back in the day! She had the Angel christmas tree topper, the bubbling candles, the tacky tin foil christmas sign "Merry Christmas", the angel hair for the tree, the satin christmas ornaments, the fake snow, the cover for the bottom of the tree, those ridiculously delicate ornaments that we were bound to destroy a few each year. That didn't stop her, she just stocked up on more in January!
    We also had that round thingy that you put on your door! She'd string bulbs on every window in every color--blinking like crazy! She had the snow cones with Frosty inside and Santa too! We'd shake those and watch the snow settle down on Santa! She'd hang old christmas cards and had those fake red/green socks filled with nuts and candy!

    Now I admit that as a kid I loved it to death!! I'd sit there pleasantly mesmerized by all the blinking and the red glow! I was thoroughly turned out by it all! And to top it off, Frosty the snowman, Rudolph and Charlie Brown came on TV without fail!! Oh it always was such a merry, merry Christmas in the projects! She was the best decorator of them all and I was especially proud of her!!
    It was divine Reggie!!

    But these days, Reggie? I say Bah Humbug right along with you, brother! It aint the same.

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  20. Agreed. Less is definitely MORE, when it comes to decorating your home during the holidays. Not a big fan of excess. It's tres tacky, yo!

    Each year the Holiday seems to lose more its true meaning as avarice rules & people just become greedy consumers of THINGS... when all that needs to be celebrated is the birthday of The Savior. If memory serves HE didn't have much, or desire anything material. We, as a society, have bogarted, corrupted, & totally changed the Real Purpose of Xmas.


    Shame on us!


    One.

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  21. John don't.

    Do you know that I had to work Saturday and I was actually watching the game on a television that isn't that far from my office....through a window. The score was 24-0 Alabama the last time I looked and then I got involved in a few things and went home. I ate at home and turned on the game when I finished just as Auburn was going ahead 28-27. I was so mad I wanted to kill someone.

    Some Christmas decor IS that bad John.

    And John, you're a bastard for bringing that up.

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  22. Gorgeous Puddin I have a staff of about 15 peeps currently, Christmas has been damned expensive for me in the past.

    For the last couple of years I've just participated in the Secret Santa bullshit with my staff. It's a lot more cost effective. Last year we also had a Christmas dinner out, it was nice. We'll probably do it again this year.

    Still.........bah humbug.

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  23. Anna Renee when I was a kid and we lived in New York, my parents had this silver Christmas tree. My mother would always decorate it with red, green and gold bulbs....oh and all kinds of lights. She liked to decorate the hell out of the inside of our house, but not the outside.

    I'm okay with people going all Santa's house at the northpole on the inside of the house, but not the outside.

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  24. Moanerplicity we might as well call it Commercial Day. When I was a kid I participated in our church's Christmas play each year. I was always Joseph or a Wiseman. You're right, every year we get further and further away from what it was originally supposed to symbolize.

    But brother if I recall correctly he did get gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the wisemen.

    I wouldn't mind getting some gold this Christmas.

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  25. I barely decorate INDOORS, much less OUTSIDE.

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  26. Reggie I hate the houses that are over decorated but I love the season.

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  27. :)) Hilarious! Love the white fence on the house with the deer and the car too! :))

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  28. Funny post, Reggie!

    I'm soooooo happy that my Mama never celebrated Christmas when I was growing up. She didn't for the same reasons you mentioned in the post. We always have the family dinner and all that with everyone together and just having quality time shared, but not with all the gift-giving and shit. We get stuff all year around anyway. It's amazing how much people think they need to go out of their way to gift somebody with things that they either don't need, or enjoy for all of 10 minutes.

    It's like as soon as Halloween is over, people are hanging up Christmas lights and filling up the stores buying gifts with money they don't have and people they barely know and hardly even like! Shit is crazy! It is what it is, I guess.

    Since I never quite got around to explaining all this to my son, it's kind of good he's a December baby because his B-day falls within the month and he gets enough to last him through the next year. But the funny thing is, he receives stuff all year around anyway, just like most kids. But nobody ever sees that.

    As for the commercials, they create needs and people buy into it - hook, line, and sinker.

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  29. When I say I hate it jjbrock....I don't really hate it. There are at least a couple of reasons why I like it; for instance, the food and the football.

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  30. Catintherain I just loved that picture too.

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  31. Traci I know of at least a few people that have rejected the gift giving notions of Christmas.

    Personally I don't mind giving gifts. There was no greater joy I felt than watching my own children open up the gifts I'd gotten them. I guess through the passage of time and the fact that my crumbsnatchers have grown up, it's just not fun to me anymore.

    I must admit though; if no one I knew gave gifts, then that would be fine with me.

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  32. OH LAWD, Reggie...I was laughing so hard, I spit my coffee out! Ya know I'm laughing because of where I live and how often I see this scenario. There's this one house in Metairie on West Esplanade and I swear, they have so much shit on the lawn, on the roof...it's everywhere! It's like Christmas elves on crack decorated. And the lights never come down! Winter,Spring,Summer or fall...the lights remain on the house.

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  33. Oh I know some decor is tacky as hell.
    But the thing is - kids love tacky more than the well designed.
    My little cousins come over to take part in our neighborhood walk/caroling night.
    They are bored by my periwinkle/antique white/pewter decor but they love those tacky lawn ornaments and poorly matched color schemes of some homeowners.
    Christmas is for kids.
    (BTW - I had it worse. USC lost to Notre Dame.)

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  34. BayouCreole I can remember when I lived in Metairie that Al Copeland had a serious display on the northshore. I think it was so serious that the city enacted some kind of city ordinance just because of him.

    I can only imagine what that looked like.

    There were some nice places in Metairie and Kenner, but there were some seriously tacky places too.

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  35. It's all good John, I hate Notre Dame too.

    Christmas does seem to be about the kids these days. They like to see the lights and the displays. I noticed one of my neighbors across the street was putting up a bunch of tacky shit, but then I remembered that they've got a slew of kids over there. Kids will make you do that sort of thing I suppose.

    Now that I'm an empty nester, it's not ever gonna happen to me.

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