Deck the Whitewalls

Is anybody else a little tired of seeing cars adorned for the holidays? I mean, seriously, the peer pressure we face from our neighbors is bad enough, but now we have to decorate our cars too? What happened to automobiles being used for transportation? I appreciate the need for a bumper sticker, but this whole one-up-manship holiday competition has to stop.

My husband prefers an understated elegance when it comes to bedecking our house. A nice wreath, maybe some garland around the door with small white lights. Occasionally he might add a strand or two of colored lights around the banisters leading to the front door, but other than that, we don’t go all out. Not like the neighbors across the street. They have no less than five holiday inflatables bobbing around their massive front lawn, which tend to overshadow the life-sized nativity scene near their garage. This year they have a two story Santa and a two story snowman, which face plant in the lawn every morning like they went on a bender the night before. Oh, I forgot to mention the icicle lights, the ones that they have a rented cherry picker truck put up the day after Thanksgiving. Compared to them, it’s like we aren’t even trying. I'm waiting for the year they fly in people from Bethlehem to enact a living nativity for the whole month of December. I wouldn't put it past them.

In my sister’s old neighborhood, their neighbors also employed a cherry picker to put the lights all over their house, and I do mean all over their house. When we would visit them over the holidays, none of us could go to sleep. The amount of light coming off that house mimicked high noon. I don’t know how they slept inside their own house, unless they used eye masks or black out curtains. We get it, you love Christmas. And exorbitant power bills. Now use a fucking dimmer switch. We need sunglasses to eat dinner inside.

Some people really go all out with their houses, but it just isn’t enough for them. They have to decorate their vehicles too. Again, like home decorations, it started simply. A stylish wreath adorning a grill, or perhaps a bright red bow. That morphed into the Rudolph the red nosed reindeer car decoration. I will describe this to you in case you live under a rock. It involves a big red pompom for the grill and two antlers which attach to the front windows. Bingo! Instant car reindeer. That gave way to the elf decoration, which had a peppermint candy for the grill and elf ears for the windows. The variation of that is a wrapped candy for the grill and candy canes for the windows. Next came actual lights wrapped around luggage racks, or even garland and lights to embellish the top of the soccer mom SUV.

The more religious folks fought back against the car decoration commercialism, creating car magnets that reminded all the other drivers that “Jesus is the reason for the season” and to “Keep the Christ in Christmas.” I have yet to see a baby Jesus stuck to the grill of a Ford F150, but I’m sure the mobile manger automobile set is just a year or two away.

Enough already. When does it stop? I get road rage now when I see these vehicles in all their holiday splendor. I take joy in seeing the stray antler lying in the road, or a car driving around with just one elf ear. One day, I am going to snap and steal all the antlers and red noses I can find, and then put them all on my car. You’ll see me rolling with twenty antlers on my windows and a cluster of red pompoms on the grill like freaking war trophies.

Or maybe, instead, I’ll create car decorations for some of the other holidays. How about a red heart and little Cupid’s wings for Valentine’s Day? Or a rainbow that stretches over the top of the car, and the back of a leprechaun splatted on the grill? Easter could be bunny ears and buck teeth. Arbor Day could have a giant acorn for the grill and branches for the windows. With every holiday, I could market another ridiculous car ornament. A purple heart for Veteran’s Day. A turkey waddle for Thanksgiving. A stovepipe hat and a beard for President’s Day.  I just might be onto something here.

Until I get that operation up and running, you better guard your antlers and red noses, because I have a dream, and that dream involves hunting your minivan deer down and poaching it for its parts. Or better yet, stop decorating everything. Stick to your houses and your sweaters and your light up necklaces and stop littering the road with oversized fake candy and car antlers. Let’s leave our roadways to cigarette butts and empty beer bottles the way it was meant to be.