I know I'm not just speaking for myself here when I point out, with utter dismay, that there was a time when people shared their Christmas spirit with the neighborhood by covering their house, and maybe their shrubbery, in strings of lights, and it was quite beautiful. But holiday tackiness found an opening somewhere and began to seep in: first those wire-frame light reindeer — like, we know that Dancer and Prancer aren't on your front lawn, cause we live in New Jersey and not the Yukon — which gave way to inflatable Santas, ratty plastic Nativity scenes, and cardboard Grinch cut-outs. But maybe two Christmases ago, the neighbors — yours and mine, and you know who I'm talking about — decided they'd snatch all the undeserved holiday attention on the street by leaving a giant inflatable snow-globe in their front yards.

Which is bad enough on its own, but I was in Drug Fair this morning, passed by one of those balloon snow-globes with a price tag on it, and realize that people actually pay money for this gaudy kitsch! A six-foot snow-globe goes for about two-hundred dollars — two-hundred dollars that could theoretically be exchanged for goods and services is instead going to uglying up someone's house, and that makes me very sad. I mean, you can drop a beat-up '88 Oldsmobile with three wheels and one cement brick on your lawn for free. Wrap it up in blinking colored lights for Yuletide; you can even use those mesh net lights if your holiday spirit is only matched by your laziness.

I would go around town with a BB gun, deflating all this crap, but you know... it is Christmas and all.