Remember the year when those inflatable lawn ornaments first came out?  Away with the plastic soldiers and manger scenes…

There’s an eery quality to this year’s Christmas.  You see it when you’re driving around during the day.  Yards filled with deflated creatures:  Santas, Snowmen, Grinches and their assorted minions–waiting for dusk and the flip of a switch to let them rise up from the earth in a Silent Night of the Living Dead.  All night long they tower above the yard; then daylight comes, and they return to the earth and wait.

…and what about those skeletal reindeer nodding their bleached white heads on suburban lawns?