"Have Yourself a Tacky Little Christmas"


Not far from where I live is a county park. It is a large, mostly wooded tract that has at its center a beautiful Tudor-style mansion. Years ago, my wife and I had a tradition of taking a walk there on Christmas day, as a way of escaping the most commercial aspects of the day. But that was before THE CELEBRATION.

For the past ten years or so, the park has, at Christmastime, been taken over by THE CELEBRATION of OIL, LIGHTS AND LAZINESS. This isn't the official title, but it fits better than the real one. The Celebration amounts to miles of tiny white lights strung up in every imaginable style, but mostly in the form of some animal, icon or idiot. It is through this hopped-up light show that slow moving morons push their pug noses against frosty car windows and take in the splendor of it all. And mind you, this is no small undertaking. Thousands of feet of thick black power cords run along the roadside, deisel-powered generators and electrical break-out boxes dot the landscape and hulking metal frames form the massive outlines of snowmen and santas.

And it draws like hell, both in terms of power and visitors. Thousands of lazyass, car-obsessed buffoons bundle their fat little tikes up and go out to witness "the magic of Christmas." Blech! It is a pathetic site. What these parents should be doing is demanding that the park be given back to all of us and that this horrific, tacky display of oil consumption and tastlessness be forever banned. They should be getting their lumpy little kids out of the freakin' car and showing them the true beauty of the countryside at night. Make the little creeps walk for once. But I have little hope this will happen. Not when corporate America is involved, as it is here. You see, the entire event is "sponsored" by a chain store. Ostensibly this is because donations go to some local charity, but let's be real; for most companies, charity begins at home.

So have yourself a tacky little Christmas, if the fates allow, next year oil will be $90 a barrel and this hideous blight will be shut down.