She's a Beaut Clark!
- Ray DeGraw
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
December 3, 2025
Tis the season of the Christmas light. As the weather gets colder, we see the bins get pulled out from our garages and attics. Children are forced to hold one end of the string as their parents try desperately to untangle last year's mess. The ladders are yanked out from underneath the leaves that fell late. I should probably clean those up. Ah, fuck it, I'm too busy. Save those for the spring. It's decorating time!
Things have certainly changed since the glory days of the 80's and 90's as the neighborhood was a festive paradise of twinkling lights of all varieties. One year white, one year colored, some years both...whatever you were feeling, or whatever strings were in full working order. Oh, and what about Christmas Eve when everybody put out the little white lunch bags filled with sand and a white candle? Oh that looked so cool.
We've come a long way since then. Now we have the gaudy blow up characters that seem to get bigger and bigger each year. They're okay, I guess...but if you're going to have those, please keep them on 24-7. Otherwise it looks like a Christmas massacre every morning when they lay deflated on the front lawn. Then there's the laser projectors that you can just run one little wire to, plug it in and forget about it. I'm okay with this too, it's not my thing, but it's still festive and some of them actually look pretty cool.
So with all this being said, the big question is why am I seeing less and less decorating every year? I mean really people, it's not that frigging hard! They have made it as easy as humanly possible. Modern science has come through for you...seriously, you can now have multiple lights blow out or fall out and they still work! First man on the moon and now this!
Have we become so "busy" with life in this modern age that we can't throw up one damned string of lights on the house? For the love of all things holy! No pun intended! Just go out, buy a five dollar string of lights at CVS and wrap it around the bush right outside your front door. No ladder required! It takes two frigging minutes! You lazy fucks!
Your display doesn't have to be in honor of Clark Griswald. It doesn't have to be seen from the International space station! You don't have to compete with your neighbor who took out a loan on his 401K to hire a professional stage designer to have his lights dance to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock. One string of lights people. Perhaps a lighted wreathe? Maybe a couple of plug in candles on your window sills? It's not that difficult. Millennials, Gen Z...I'm looking at you! Lazy assholes!
Merry Frigging Christmas!
My neighbor across the street has one of those laser light show things intended to illuminate the tree in her front yard, but it overshoots that, goes through our living room windows, and is a constant irritant as we try and catch up on Stranger Things. She's about to get a visit from the Grinch.