Brainstorm - Holiday Decoration Dilemmas
Holiday Decorations
Seriously, people, we have to quit putting up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving!
I know we all need a little bit of joy sometimes, but the people who put up their lights and Christmas trees the day after (or even the evening of, or morning of!) Halloween are getting ridiculous. What are we doing? Do we really want the Christmas décor up for two months? I just don't understand the motivation.
🗓️ The Right Time for Christmas Cheer
Personally, I put my decorations up on Thanksgiving weekend, weather permitting. And even then, I might just put up the outdoor stuff. I despise getting out the actual Christmas tree—I find it a hassle. I like my Christmas lights, but I honestly don't care about anyone else's. It's not fun going to see Christmas lights in the fall, especially when there are still leaves on the trees! If you love it that much, why not just leave it up all year? What gets me even more is the people who put them up early and then take them down at like, Christmas-Day night.
🎃 A Word on Halloween
Halloween is different. If you want to put your stuff up in October, fine. It goes with fall—the warm colors, the browns, and reds (with a pop of orange). You rarely see the large amounts of green and red together like at Christmas. Halloween decorations are often unique, though the inflatable things are universally lame. People need to stop putting those up—they are only for people with little kids who need something non-scary. A couple of years ago, I decided to do pumpkins. I bought false pumpkins to keep all year and committed to getting four more each year. Now, I have so many I'm wondering: Where the hell am I going to put all these things?
📦 The Storage Dilemma
That is the one question I have: Where do people put all their goddamn Halloween and Christmas decorations? Between minor Thanksgiving or fall-themed decorations and the giant Christmas things, I've got enough. I have two different Christmas trees—I think maybe even three! I have a main tree and a smaller one (which I'd be happy just to put up). I'm truly reconsidering buying any more pumpkins until I figure out a better place for them. I can't litter my whole house with fake pumpkins just for one time of the year. I might have to spend a weekend clearing out my yard barn and wrapping them tightly in garbage bags. I just hope the rats and mice won't chew through the plastic or foam!
Unless we decide to get a new yard-barn and demolish the old one, I'm tempted to take all my overly carved pumpkins to a craft show and sell them for twenty bucks a piece (or two for $30!). People could get a unique, “forever” decoration.
For next Halloween, since it'll be on a Saturday, I'm thinking of getting four more pumpkins and making a pumpkin totem pole. If I can't put a real one in the yard, I should be able to make one out of my pumpkins!
Floating Ghost Tip: This year, my wife bought me a fake white carvable pumpkin. I stuck some fishing line in it and hung it between the corners of my L-shaped house, right in front of the front door. With an electric candle inside, it glows at night, and you can't see the fishing line—it looks like it's just floating there. It was so cool!
💡 The Christmas Light Escalation
When Christmas rolls around, I'll probably get some more lights. A couple of years ago, I went kind of overboard—almost full Clark Griswold—outlining the roof, windows, and garage doors. I like lighting up the outline of the roof and a couple of windows.
Attaching lights around a vertical flat wall surface on a brick house is difficult. I used thumbtacks a few years ago, but the vinyl around my windows makes it hard. Maybe I don't buy any more lights this year.
🎁 The Gift-Giving Conundrum
My kids are right at the end of childhood and getting into their teenage years, which brings up another problem: I don't want to spend too much on decorating my house because I'd like to get my family gifts they will actually use. The gift market is either big and expensive or tiny and expensive. You know what kids love to play with? The cheap stuff. I could probably go to the dollar store and find more things my kids would be entertained with than buying them a smart watch or a giant Lego set. We definitely don't need any more Barbie playhouses. My daughter likes certain clothes, and my son is a sports dude who loves wearing sports gear. We've gotten him basketballs and two non-weatherproof return nets that rust after a winter outside.
My son plays video games, but we don't have a family console out in the main area. I could get a Switch 2 for the family, but I know it would end up just being him and me playing, and he'd be "shitty" and tell his sister she couldn't play. Plus, the Switch 2 needs a significant game like a Mario Odyssey sequel.
🎮 The Future of Mario
We played Super Mario Wonder, and it was fun, but you beat it pretty quickly. You can spend time looking for extra Wonder Seed to unlock extra, extremely hard levels, but after you’ve beaten the game, you’re ready to move on and maybe come back to it in a few years. I think the one thing Nintendo could do, in line with Mario Maker, is figure out a way to make a 3D Mario Maker game. Like Mario 64 Maker. You can spend a truckload of time on Mario Maker, and a 3D version would be pretty rad. That has to be the last creative idea Miyamoto has up his sleeve.
So we went from Early Christmas decorating to Mario Maker… successful Brainstorm, right?
