Christmas

Chris and Erin went:

... Afterwards everyone from the neighborhood went to the firehouse across the street and Boston Fire supplied some tasty treats of chili, soda, and cake! ...

Hit the pre-set for Oldies 103 this morning. Instead of Martha Ray and the Vandellas or Dale Dorman, I got Bing Crosby crooning about Christmas.

GAH! It's not even Thanksgiving, people.

Thanks to Joye, I rushed over to JP as soon as it got dark tonight. Sure enough, the Castle was all lit up for Christmas. On the one hand, cool! Certainly makes the drive down the Jamaicaway more interesting. On the other hand, um, has anybody looked at the calendar yet?

Joye reports that the Castle, that big stone-ish house on the Jamaicaway near the Arborway, is already all done up for Christmas:

... It's beautiful. A regular house would just look tacky with all those decorations, but they can get away with it because their house looks like a castle and people expect the grandeur. People are already slowing down to get a look and almost causing accidents. ...

You walk into the Lowe's in Dedham to buy some downspout splashes and BOOM, you're hit right in the face with the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, right there at the very front of the store.

Here it is, middle of May and on Skiing in Jeans, Emily wonders:

Why do New Englanders leave their Christmas decorations up forever? You drive around and you see rotting Christmas wreathes everywhere. Or, I was driving the other night and saw two small Christmas trees lit up in someone's window. Very strange. Just let it go. ...

I found out about the JP Christmas Caroling Mob from the JP Neighbors for Neighbors group. I went last night, had a GRAND time, and took lots of pictures. Thanks to Joel Sindelar of the Loose Canon Chorale for setting up this event.

The people who own this house on Hyde Park Avenue (near West Street) go all out for pretty much every holiday, from July 4th to, of course, Christmas. I can't help but wondering why the doggy in the lower right is so sad (maybe it's because he really wanted me to include the giant illuminated train with the turning wheels on the fence opposite him, but I just couldn't get both him and the train in the photo, not without getting hit by a bus on Hyde Park Avenue).

Earlier:
Anybody got a pin for those giant inflatable Xmas things?
'Tis the season (for giant inflatables)
Taking the Giant Inflatable Santa out of Christmas
Elves shining with an inner light

Every Dec. 26, this guy on Oak Street in Dedham goes around to local stores, buying up their outdoor Christmas decorations. So now every Christmas, his yard is full of Christmas decorations. There's an illuminated Santa atop his chimney. The rest of his house is also decorated with illuminated Santas and reindeer and stars and, well, you name it. Below is just a PART of his yard:

Christine hates those giant inflatable Santas and snowmen and dogs almost as much as December shopping in stores with the thermostat set to 90:

... I want to pop them all. ... Feed some starving kids in Africa or something. Don't put this crap out on the side of the road for me to drive past. Another thing for the terrorists to hate about us. ...

She's got a sympathetic ear in Michael, who barfs:

... Once you get past the Heathen End of our street (3 Jews, a Mormon, and Me), it's like Las Vegas East- Lights! Stars! Gigantic Sno-globes! Creepy Reindeer Skeletons! Like Halloween several weeks ago, everyone seems to want the brightest, flashiest, decorated-est house on the street. ...

Guess they should stay away from this house.

Tim declares:

As I washed paint off my hands this afternoon, I reflected: You can always tell the housebloggers among us. They are the ones who have to finish priming and painting a wall before they can put up their Christmas tree in front of it. ...

We couldn't make it to the annual Santas in Speedos run yesterday. Fortunately, Karl did, and he brought his camera.

D.L. notes a guitar player on an Orange Line platform at Downtown Crossing on Friday:

... A gentleman wearing a Santa hat was quietly and beautifully playing Christmas Carols on his guitar. I think it worth noting these were not holiday songs they were of Christmas. He played them with respect. They were superb and enhanced by the venue -- how very fortunate for his regularly changing audience.

Somebody is going around Watertown stealing giant inflatable Santas and Frosties.

Frinkiac and his wife come back from a successful Christmas-tree hunt:

... We bought it from some crazy Russian guy at Home Depot. First, he declared our tree a "masterpiece that comrade Lenin would be proud of," then when my wife left to go find a wreath, he confided in me that although Christmas was a holiday invented by "Capitalist pig-dogs", he still enjoyed sipping fine vodka while he watched some old Sergei Eisenstein movies. Also, he kept saying "In Soviet Russia, tree decorates you!", which didn't really make any sense. ...

Via H2Otown.

In for a penny, in for a pound of giant inflatable Christmas ornaments seems to be the watchword at this house on the VFW Parkway in West Roxbury. Meanwhile, on Bateman Street in Roslindale, somebody is dreaming of a tropical Christmas, just like the one they used to know:

On Metropolitan Avenue in Roslindale, St. Frosty, the patron saint of lifesize illuminated plastic choirboys, gives his blessing:

Karl describes the things he saw on a walk through Porter Square this morning, including:

... a "Please Do Not Feed the Pigeons" sign. A (presumably liberal) person wrote under the sign "THIS IS HATE." Ah - life in the People's Republic of Cambridge.

Further down the street I walked by a Christmas Tree stand in front of a church. Profits of the sales are going to a pre-school scholarship fund...SCHOLARSHIPS..FOR PRE-SCHOOL! ...

Halley hears "The Little Drummer Boy" one time too many on the radio today:

What the ?!?

Today, I'm driving my car and I hear ONE TOO MANY TIMES, "the ox and lamb kept time" and I think, "What the hell is that about?!?"

Maybe they were keeping thyme? In case somebody wants some nice oxtail/lamb stew?

Dusty posts photos of the Hyde Park tree lighting (at which local boy made good Manny del Carmen threw the switch to turn on the lights).

It's not even Thanksgiving, and already WODS has gone over to its all-Christmas playlist (including the Village People singing some Christmas song to the music of "YMCA").

Jody: It's too soon!

Michael: We're not nearly ready for this. Still, he says he's grateful, because it reminds him he'll be spending Christmas far away:

... They don't play The Little Drummer Boy or White Christmas or the Chipmunk Song up in the Peruvian Andes. ...

If you want the WODS of old, and you're south of JP and aren't driving on 128, you should be able to pick up B 101 (actually, more like B 101.5) out of Providence. Meanwhile, could somebody tell our neighbors that Nov. 16 is really just a tad early to be turning on their Christmas lights?

Xmasween? Hallomas? Augustus Avenue at Metropolitan Avenue in Roslindale.

The Brooks pharmacy in Roslindale now has two whole tables of Christmas crap moose and wooden ornaments for sale.

Dave reports:

Target has Christmas stuff out on display. Trees, cards, ornaments, flashing wicker reindeer. Powered on and damned proud of it. ...