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The $150,000 display included a Santa that surfed
(because it only makes sense that Father Christmas
hangs ten) giant candy canes and, in what sounds like
an episode from the Twilight Zone, carol-singing
mannequins.
After six years of putting up with the fanfare and
traffic congestion exacerbated by an NBC feature that
drew even more attention to the upscale San Jose suburb,
the neighbors protested by getting ninety signatures
and the attention of the City Council. Now a permit
is required if the revelers want to keep the display
up for longer than three days and they have decided
that it was not worth the hassle.
So, in place of what could be considered Disneyesque
ostentation, is a ten-foot tall motorized Grinch that
points accusingly at the neighbors while rasping,
“You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.”
Is it mean just because someone wants to celebrate
the holiday in a more understated fashion?
I’m having a difficult time feeling any empathy
toward those who litter their lawns with such carnivalistic
display and obvious need for attention. Especially
for the amount of time and money it costs to build
such a scene. Just think what $150,000 could actually
do. To begin with, homeless people could be fed, even
sheltered. The affronted attitude that is expressed
in the article by the reined-in revelers seems to
be lacking in what should be the desire for peace
on earth, good will toward man.
Don’t get me wrong. I do recall the warm feeling
that I got as the holidays were approaching when I
was a child and occasionally am able to achieve as
an adult in this self-centered culture. I recall how
I’d curl up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn
on my lap and watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas
with my family.
We’d all get teary-eyed when Linus appeared
and came to Charlie Brown’s defense after the
animated gang ridiculed Charlie Brown for buying the
most pathetic of trees for the Christmas pageant.
It took a soft-spoken child to remind Charlie Brown
and his friends what the holiday is really about by
reciting Luke 2:8-14. It was a simple cartoon with
a big message. Sometimes I think now we have it backwards
by creating something big and outlandish in an attempt
to stir up those sentimental feelings. And, time after
time, we fail miserably.
It’s embarrassingly true that I outdid what
my parents had done for me and my parents had outdone
what their parents had done for them in way of gifts
on Christmas morning. Now, though, it appears that
instead of the doll that does nothing more than be
a doll, children are left with sophisticated toys
that do little but consume the paycheck while leaving
the imagination idle. And these extravaganzas seem
to be only feeding the beast we’ve accepted
as commercialism.
I grew up in a speck of a town in upstate New York
where houses weren’t submerged in a sea of lights
for neighbors to admire or envy. Most of the locals
didn’t have time to do any such thing since
they had farms to run. Now I live in suburbia Long
Island and, gratefully, do not yet have a neighbor
who wants to put on a circus of sorts, all in the
name of Christmas to the tune of hundreds of thousands
of dollars, but I have noticed that by the time the
lights have come down it seems they are going back
up just as quickly.
My parents didn’t awash my house with outside
lights. I think they found it challenging enough to
get the entangled string of bulbs to work before draping
them on the tree. But, the magic for me as a child
was looking out across the field to where my grandparents’
house stood and see the glow of the single blue light
of the candle placed in their living room window.
The idea that there are people willing to spend days
creating a small animated village on their front lawn
in hopes of stirring such emotions is confounding.
I am not so sure that children are anymore enchanted
by the adulterated fantasy set up in the form of life-sized
ornaments than I was by the farm house that suddenly
became ablaze in the magic of Christmas by a single
candle.
However, our California folks still feel their Christmas
fun has been robbed from them. But in this imperial
climate of late, certain people feel it is their right
to blast their beliefs and customs without so much
as caring how offensive and disruptive it is to their
neighbors. Having a gigantic Grinch with pointed finger
accuse a supposed injustice is certainly not going
to resolve what has to be acrimony between the neighbors.
For these neighbors, even if the night isn’t
as bright as it had been in past years by all sorts
of colorful lights plugged into a generator, one hopes
that it will be filled with peace.
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