Aggressive Decorating

This blog is dedicated to Terri, who told me that I had to keep my momentum and go home and write this down...thanks for your undying support you bossy control-freak! Loves!

So, one day last month I came home and noticed cute, purple bat lights hanging across my neighbors' patio, and an array of festive window-clings adorning both their sliding glass doors and the kitchen window that faces my parking space.

Walking down the stairs to the landing we share between our front doors, I saw a Trick-or-Treat doormat, a fall-themed welcome sign hanging in the belly of their door (you know--not up high enough, more like it's hanging around the belly button of the door) and two pumpkins: one white, one orange.

The next day when I walked down my stairs I saw that the white pumpkin was now the head of a little iron skeleton that was standing proudly in front of their door with the orange pumpkin at its feet. (The iron skeleton w/ pumpkin head is super-awesome and I would steal it but they might know I did it when it's out in front of my door...)

A couple days later I noticed that their patio bats were now accompanied by three lawn stakes with Halloween emblems on them. A few days after that I spied a wind-spinner-type Halloween ornament staked in the lawn next to the three other lawn stakes. The front door also had a new sign hanging above the belly-level one. It was tin and said something like Dan's Demon Disco and featured skeletons boogie-ing the night away.

I was starting to be amazed at the ever-growing decor--but they weren't finished yet.

Next there was yellow caution tape in a giant "X" across the patio (under the previously-mentioned bats and behind the lawn stakes). The door also boasted yellow caution tape--and a little crafty, wooden, painted "BOO" dangling from a nail at the left top corner of the front door.

This continued day after day--now the white pumpkin had a scary face drawn on it, next a sparkly, lighted Frankenstein was frolicking with the lawn stakes, eventually three jack-o-lanterns appeared next to Frankenstein.

It was relentless!

After Halloween passed this weekend, I was curious to see what would happen next door. Sure enough, on Monday the welcome mat, skeleton pumpkin head, Dan's Demon Disco and "BOO" were replaced with an empty space where the Trick-or-Treat welcome mat had been, the lone belly-button fall sign and...wait for it...a little, tin turkey standing in the skeleton's place--holding a banner that proclaims, 'Thanksgiving Blessings.'

The purple bats were gone. There was no caution tape in sight--and the jack-o-lanterns now stood alone.

Tonite (just to keep me interested, I'm sure) there was a miniature pumpkin sitting proudly next to the tin turkey.

There are things I admire about my neighbors' overly enthusiastic holiday decorating. There are also parts of me that fear people with such little self-restraint.

"Maybe they have a lot of holiday spirit," my work colleague said.

"They have a lot of something," I replied, "And it's not taste."

Terri finds them entertaining and (sadly) quite admirable. When I throw out my jack-o-lanterns (any day now!) and trade out my spider-web doormat for my fall-colored (but mostly regular) doormat, my door will look exactly the way it did BEFORE Halloween--with my fall-colored berry wreath (that, regrettably, is in its death throes) and fall-colored rug.

I won't be switching it up again until Christmas.

Wait...Christmas! Can you imagine?!? How crazy might these people get if they have items to add daily for a non-decorative holiday like Thanksgiving?

I am equal parts terror and anticipation--both so strong that I may pee my pants. What if I try to go toe-to-toe with them? If I get all Betty Lou Who on their ass, will they respond in kind? Could we have a Christmas decorating showdown? If I get crazier and crazier will they go totally off the grid and reach new heights of condo Christmas spirit?

Part of me is planning to diabolically make this happen.

Another part yearns to be tasteful. A very tiny part. Terri is sure to hold that part back. I wonder, in the end, which part will be victorious...