'tis the season: holiday weirdness

Time to post about one of my favorite holiday traditions: making fun of other people's holiday traditions! Well, not traditions so much as bad taste. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas if no one displayed their bad taste for the world to see, or if retailers didn't come up with holiday kitsch to sell, and likewise, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a little mockery of those things.

First, to follow up on one of the videos I posted on Monday, I learned from Karen that apparently a lot of people synchronize their Christmas lights to songs by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Who knew that would be such a popular holiday pastime? This is not so much a mockery as an observation that there are evidently many people out there with a lot of time on their hands during the holiday season, as you can see from a YouTube search.

Now for the mockery.

Who doesn't love tacky Christmas lights? I found an entire site deovted to them: UglyChristmasLights.com. Some of the photos on that site aren't that bad, but others are totally hideous. I love it.

Next up, tacky ornaments! The strangest ornaments I've ever seen in real life are those made by elementary-school children (myself included, of course), but there are a wealth of bizarre ornaments out there. The best I've seen is this delightful Elvis Cow, which, sadly, is sold out. That means a little less kitschy glitter on my tree this year.

I also found a Flickr group devoted to strange ornaments, and there are some real treasures there. What says "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" like hanging a winged pear, a monkey head, or a portrait of Frida Kahlo painted on a bright pink star on your tree?

Okay, my next link isn't about mockery, because it's kind of sad -- but also very funny: a collection of photos of children frightened of Santa. What kind of parent makes their screaming, crying, struggling child sit on Santa's lap for the photo? I'm not sure, but there are at least 187 of these sadistic parents out there somewhere.

And now. I have saved the best for last: the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities! This year's is actually the second edition; be sure to check out the first cavalcade, from which I stole the photo of the owl nativity. Owls! I laugh every time I look at that photo, because who thought it was a good idea to represent Jesus & Co. as owls? Or even if they didn't think it was a good idea, who would think of such a thing in the first place?

I am incredibly grateful, though, that there are people out there who think of things like Elvis Cow ornaments and Owl Nativities, because sometimes when the Christmas season is getting to be too hurried and too busy and too much, you need to sit down and envision God sending his son to earth in the form of an owl. Oh, man, but I'm still laughing at that. If ever I were to have a nativity scene in my home, that would be the one. That would guarantee our Christmas season would be full of laughter.