Tacky Outdoor Decor
 

This isn't just for Christmas or any other holiday, it's for people who somehow decorate their houses in a style that boggles the imagination. I think we all have seen houses painted with the same color as street lines or fire hydrants, but for some reason, my area has more tacky Christmas decorations than I've ever seen before. Nominate your worst!

A yard that I pass heading to a friend's house has the most disturbing display for Halloween every single year. There are literally about 30-50 dolls buried in the front yard, with only their heads showing above ground. The heads are then covered in some sort of red coloring to imply blood.

One of these years I will take a picture, but I always seem to have my very young kids with me when we have been in that area. Frankly, I just don't want to pay for all the therapy that they will need should they notice what is actually in the ground. Therefore, I always create a distraction and then just zoom past.

My aunt and uncle have the leg lamp from A Christmas Story. They only put it out for Christmas, but it's still incredibly tacky. I don't care how much you love that movie, it looks terrible.

About a year after my husband and I sold our old house, we found ourselves in the neighborhood and decided to drive by. BIG MISTAKE. The new owners cut down all the trees in the front yard and pulled out the lovely rhododendron bushes. :(

But the tacky part? There were icicle lights everywhere on the front of the house.

Did I mention it was August?

I gotta say I LOVE tacky Christmas decorations. We don't have any because my mother would rather be caught dead than do tacky but my dad thinks they're awesome so when we visit my grandparents every Christmas we go driving around to find all the ridiculous decorations. For some reason LA (lower Alabama) seems to be a hot spot for tacky Christmas. There's one house that fills the ENTIRE yard with things that light up...and then the house is covered. Even the whole roof. It's awesome.

Like this?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bkFIPLIOGL...cky023_wtf.jpg

That's pretty much spot on for the house I'm thinking of except on the roof they have lights. Like a big net of lights they spread on the whole roof.

I agree that looks tacky & terrible. However, I often fantasize of having one of those to stick in my window for just one year to see how long it takes our neighbors across the street to complain/raise a stink. :D

These neighbors are our least favorite and quite frankly the least favorite of everyone in our area of the neighborhood. They do not celebrate Halloween and are nasty to those that do, including the children who are just trying to trick or treat. They complain each year about neighbors (and us) setting off fireworks on the 4th of July & New Year's claiming they are inappropriate--this really ticked off everyone when they said and went on about this the 4th of July after 9/11. In addition, they constantly have the neighborhood association in litigation over people putting up tool sheds in their backyards that MIGHT be visible from the street.

This reminds me of a house they featured on one of the Christmas shows on TLC, except the house blinked on an off to the tune of various Christmas songs. I like the decor, but I think the constant blinking would cause me some problems.

On the other hand, I would hate to see this house's electric bill!

There's a well-known house in Los Angeles that takes tacky to a new level. The place is called Youngwood Court. The story goes that the owner, Norwood Young, put a statue of David in his front yard and when neighbors complained he put 18 more just to piss them off. It's an eyesore most of the year but at Christmastime it's off the charts tacky. These pictures don't even do it justice.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...youngwood4.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...youngwood5.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...youngwood3.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...youngwood2.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...youngwood1.jpg

The owner and his dog, Diva:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...youngwood6.jpg

I gotta admit...I find that hilarious. That guy must have a smashing sense of humor and huge balls.

Except for the pink dog. Poor dog.

That poor pink dog. :(

OK, how's this for tacky? There is a cul-de-sac near my in-laws' house where every family except one decorates their house along the lines of that pic PiKA2001 posted. We're talking big brightly-lit nativity scenes, animated reindeer and sheep dotted around the lawn, Santa and his sleigh and reindeer on the roof, animated "choir angels" in the front windows, roofs covered in lights, and at one house, a big brightly lit sign that reads "Merry Christmas from the _____s!" People come from miles around to see the spectacle, and the intersection at the end of the block is inevitably a fustercluck. You can probably see it from space. Con Edison must love these guys.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. I think that if I tried to take a picture, my camera's lens would break from the tackiness.

I have a very low threshold for tacky decorations. For example I hate colored lights.

However, I can support any tackiness for the sake of vindictive neighbor baiting a la ThetaPrincess24.

I hate colored lights (except for some really pretty bright blue ones I have seen this year on a house, still would NEVER have them at my house, though), and I really hate those blow up things that people put in their yards. Gross.

While my mother doesn't do tacky Christmas by any means, I think literally everything in our house gets replaced with Christmas decorations. It looks like the North pole in a fancy way. It drives me nuts because I hate going around unplugging all the lights at night.

But most tacky I've seen is this house on the way to bfs aunts house. It is right a long a main road, and plain white (without siding? I don't actually know what it is) But they hang ugly hand-painted wood cut outs of santas and candy canes and elfs all over the sides of the house. Then have the tacky plastic reindeer and sleigh in the yard. It always makes me feel bad for them, because I think they really think it looks nice...

LOL at the back view of the Davids in their Santa hats!

What sent me over the edge was a local house with a beautiful creche - with one of those big, inflatable snowmen over it, as if embracing it in his arms. Hovering about is one Santa in an airplane, about to attack another Santa in a heliocoptor - all with propellers working. Elves, Santas, dancing candy, a working merry-go-round and other inflatables hang about. But the Santas remind me of Snoopy and the Red Baron, about to shoot each other down over the baby Jesus.

Honestly, if you put up a creche, stick with the theme! And those beautiful blue lights someone mentioned? Probably LED lights. I absolutely hate to come across a beautiful section of all clear lights, with ONE house with the blinding LED lights!

friends and myself will drive around and look for tacky Christmas Decorations. I have found the school bus outlined in small colored twinkle lights; santa flying over the a Nativity; and everything in the yard that would hold still wrapped in lights. The Lamp Store in Lexington, KY has the Leg Lamp in the window.

Mixing them at ONE house is even worse though. One funeral home here had a mix of plain clear and LED lights. Attached. It looks like they meant to get all clear and accidently bought some LED/vice versa. It looks so terrible.

Yes they do!

There is a street not far from me that used to put their lighted deer in a rather "compromising" position. I always found that to be rather tacky, yet snicker worthy every year. :)

I know the place! The deers are in a nice part of town. (I do laugh!) There is a house that has pink flamingos in the Christmas Decor and it is in an area that the hoa does not like to deviate from white lights. I know the family.

I am clearly in the minority here but I hate all clear lights. Give me color. The whole dang world is totally white in the winter. The colored lights give you something pretty to look at. White snow, white pavement, white bushes and shrubs (from being covered with snow)... colored lights offset all the darn white. Blinking? no way, but color, yes.

I'm generally in favorite of colored lights for outside too, Dee. However, I really hate the way LED lights look. The color just looks...off. I can't put my finger on it.

My husband loves LEDs but I do not. I agree that their lighting/color looks off. My husband had me buy a set of LEDs to decorate with the pine garland in our hallway (eventhough they cost 3 times more than the regular). I think they look almost blue rather than white. I dont like them.

I agree about colored lights. I've always had colored lights on a tree growing up and then when I was single. Having white lights on the tree is the biggest Christmas adjustment I've had since getting married. It's grown on me over the years and I like it now, but if next year is going to be like this year and last where I become the sole tree decorator then I'm buying colored lights for next year. :)

There are colored lights on my tree. :) I grew up with colored lights on the tree, around the windows, and on the outside. If we used white lights, it was because the colored ones were broken or we ran out. I think white lights look very elegant and colored lights look more fun and spirited, which equals "Christmas-y" for me.

Someone in the complex next to me put out a winter seen with blow up characters and a four-foot plastic "snowglobe." It's only up at night so they're all deflated during the day. TBH they look like the characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when they're dipped in that goo and "die."

Snowmen are tacky to me in Texas unless its West Texas where I actually gets snow and cold. A few days ago it was 87 degrees and my neighbor had a blow up snowman in his front yard.

I like colored lights better also. We have colored lights on our tree and I grew up with colored as well. My parents whole street puts up candy canes around the yard and drapes white lights from cane to cane which I think looks good as a whole street.