Ways to Make Your Christmas Display the Most Hideous on the Street

Christmas is a season filled with 5 important things: Cheer, food, family, presents and lights. Feel free to put them in whatever order you choose.

Lucky for us food, family and presents stay in the house at Christmastime. Sadly for us, cheer sometimes collides with lights and decorations in a manner that is almost frightening.

I love Christmas lights as much as I love any other part of Christmas, but like other aspects of Christmas, I believe outdoor holiday decorations should be used in moderation. If the mailman has to limbo under extension cords to get to your mailbox something is very, very wrong.

With that said I present to you, my five surefire ways of decorating your yard that will get your neighbors leafing through real estate magazines and force passing by drivers to put down their sun visors at 9pm.

1. Do half a good job.

This is most easily done by wrapping 200 lights around a tree trunk and leaving the top dark and bare. Multi colored twinkle lights as opposed to matching colored strands don't make a difference. You just want those trunks wrapped up. Maybe in the past you decided you'd also do the top. You did it, stepped back and realized it just looked really stupid and told yourself you'd never make THAT mistake again. All that time and effort putting lights in the top of the tree and all it did was take away from the cylindrical beauty of a wrapped tree trunk.

What a waste of Christmas time.

2. Christmas on, Christmas off.

DO NOT THROW AWAY THE CLEAR BLINKER BULBS WITH THE RED TIP. If you have already done so, you have to go to the store and just buy new lights. Or Christmas is ruined. Anyway, put one in every strand of twinkle lights you staple to the house, drape around doors and windows and loop through trees. Throw the switch and prepare to experience a minor sense of confusion. Once you've gained your bearings again you can clearly see where one set ends and another begins. The pine tree along the side lights up in oddly shaped patches. Some blink incredibly fast and others take their time. So what if for a split second you forgot your name and where you lived? That's a small price to pay for the unordered, slightly cheap glow of Christmas.

For extra effects, wrap just the trunks of all your trees.

3. Line your yard.

I know they sell little stakes for this and you can also just make something to mount your lights to. Either way you go they must stand up perfectly straight. I personally think the bigger bulbs (C7, C9) work perfectly for this, and that's convenient because all your little twinkle lights are probably wrapped around your tree trunks. I also think your yard bulbs should all be the same color. A mint blue will always keep the people across the street awake at night.

Line wherever grass ends and a hard surface begins. This includes but isn't limited to sidewalks, steps, flower beds, foundations and driveways. This festive technique literally screams, "I LOVE CHRISTMAS"... and since you do, this is a perfect way to show it. Also handy as your yard can either double or sometimes be mistaken for an emergency landing spot for small aircraft.

4. One white, animated deer is never enough.

Ah, words to live by. If you take nothing else from this article, I strongly suggest you remember this. We live in a time now, where these animated deer come in several sizes, shapes and both genders. It's up to you if you decide to get a few of each (plan your route, is Target closer than Wal-mart? Where does K-mart fit in?) or just buy one major department store out of every metal deer shoved in a box they have.

If you decided to go with a variety of deer, you'll be pleased to see some grazing, some looking around casually. It's like a merry forest of Christmas wildlife. And you made it happen.

One warning, though. Be sure not to buy deer that just move their heads up and down as if they're eating "berries" (leaves you never finished raking) off the "forest floor" (your lumpy, unfertilized lawn). It'll just look like a bunch of fake deer at a Metallica concert.

5. Bigger is always better.

Personally I'd like to find the so and so that coined that phrase and... Shake his hand! If the four previous ideas contained in this jolly guide are good, this last one is just great. The answer to your Christmas yard dilemma is... inflatables!

Pay no mind that the car needs tires or you're only 1 payment away from cutting up that Visa card, Santa Claus in a 1957 Chevy is only $189 at the wholesale club and it needs to go on the Southwest corner of your yard or there's no reason to even put up a tree!

In order to keep up you must purchase at least 2 Christmas inflatables a year. Good choices include a snowman, anything in a giant snow globe, the Grinch, SpongeBob SquarePants, a polar bear and Mickey Mouse.

Whoa! Back up the sleigh! How many inflatables is too many? This is easy. NONE. Forget a rule-of-thumb. If you see an inflatable chances are there is room in your yard for it. If there isn't room, you just have to make room. You have a point to prove. You have a yard to decorate.

Now, just sit back and put it all together in your head. Tree trunks lined with bright twinkle lights, the house flashing, lending almost a fiery glow, your yard carefully outlined with the biggest bulbs you can legally find, groups of deer quietly and gracefully not prancing around the yard and wedged in between it all, large, gelatinous looking characters all wearing red Santa Claus hats.

You told everyone, perhaps even warned everyone about how much you love Christmas. You've officially passed on more cheer than most people can handle.

Good job. Merry Christmas!