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Monday, December 22, 2003
I have to be honest with you: I’m not a big fan of the holidays. I used to love this time of year when I was a kid: two carefree weeks without school, sledding, hot cocoa, and, of course, presents galore. As an adult, the holidays are nothing but stress: crowds, traffic, and the inhuman trial that is Christmas Air Travel. I’ve grown more Scrooge-like over the last several years, to the point that a few notes of Christmas music now cause me to pull my turtle head inside my iPod and attempt to sleep until January.
It will come as no surprise, then, that my curmudgeonly attitude only permits me to enjoy Christmas decorations that are unintentionally horrible. I recently acquired one such item.
The item in question is suggestively named “Standing Buck”. We’re off to a good start already. Imagine my surprise to find The Divine Ms. N– standing at my door one evening holding a giant box and saying, “I got you a standing buck!”, her eyes alight like a proverbial Christmas tree. I just stood there with my mouth open for a few seconds. Was I going to end up in jail?
The "sculpture" consists of several pieces of heavy-gauge metal wire bent to look vaguely deer-shaped. The feet have little spikes in them so that you can stick it on your lawn. Strands of miniature white Christmas lights have been strung along the wire, terminating in a wall plug whose position is slightly embarrassing and best left undescribed. Plugging in the lights makes the deer come to “life”, the tiny bulbs tracing out the tail, feet, nose, antlers, etc. and making them visible to the people driving their German sedans through your suburban neighborhood at night, which is presumably the target audience for this kind of thing.
This particular standing buck is even more special, on account of it being “animated”. A plug in the deer’s neck activates a tiny motor which causes the deer’s head to sway lazily back and forth. This must be a major upgrade in the world of bizarre Christmas decorations, because they mention it right on the box. What they don’t mention is that the motor causes two of the cage’s wires to rub together, causing it to make a scree….scree….scree noise as the deer’s head moves. We promptly named him “Squeaky.”
I have no doubt that this item was made with the best of intentions. I imagine a product designer waking up with a start, a half-remembered dream still swirling about in his head: a noble buck standing in a snowy meadow, its majestic antlers thrown back, nose to the wind, the crown of its head waving back and forth as if in greeting. As he sat in bed scribbling down his idea, I’m sure the guy imagined that his beautiful sculpture would fill us all with a sense of delight and holiday cheer.
What it actually fills us with, of course, is dread and terror. The fact of the matter is that the decoration is, essentially, a bleached deer skeleton. The magical holiday wonder of the Christmas lights attached to its bones isn’t enough to distract you from the hollow stare of the eyeless creature as it gazes soullessly at the heavens. The moving head isn’t helping things, either. It moves fast enough for it to appear slightly alive but slowly enough to seem undead, and after a while the squeaking noise starts to sound like the rattling of chains. “We are the walking dead,” it seems to say. “Have a wonderful and joyous holiday season…”
In short, I love it. It’s a concise summary of my feelings about the holidays. I won't be thinking of sugarplums this Christmas - instead, my head will harbor visions of Squeaky, the zombie reindeer.
I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks – Indiana for five days, and then four days in New York. Have fun while I’m gone! I promise that I’ll have lots of hilarious stories when I get back. If you get depressed, just think of Squeaky.
Here are some slightly more artistic pictures in case you're interested:
Gaze Into The Eye of Squeaky
Happy holidays, everyone! If you're not celebrating any holidays, then I wish you as average a week as possible.
It will come as no surprise, then, that my curmudgeonly attitude only permits me to enjoy Christmas decorations that are unintentionally horrible. I recently acquired one such item.
The item in question is suggestively named “Standing Buck”. We’re off to a good start already. Imagine my surprise to find The Divine Ms. N– standing at my door one evening holding a giant box and saying, “I got you a standing buck!”, her eyes alight like a proverbial Christmas tree. I just stood there with my mouth open for a few seconds. Was I going to end up in jail?
The "sculpture" consists of several pieces of heavy-gauge metal wire bent to look vaguely deer-shaped. The feet have little spikes in them so that you can stick it on your lawn. Strands of miniature white Christmas lights have been strung along the wire, terminating in a wall plug whose position is slightly embarrassing and best left undescribed. Plugging in the lights makes the deer come to “life”, the tiny bulbs tracing out the tail, feet, nose, antlers, etc. and making them visible to the people driving their German sedans through your suburban neighborhood at night, which is presumably the target audience for this kind of thing.
This particular standing buck is even more special, on account of it being “animated”. A plug in the deer’s neck activates a tiny motor which causes the deer’s head to sway lazily back and forth. This must be a major upgrade in the world of bizarre Christmas decorations, because they mention it right on the box. What they don’t mention is that the motor causes two of the cage’s wires to rub together, causing it to make a scree….scree….scree noise as the deer’s head moves. We promptly named him “Squeaky.”
I have no doubt that this item was made with the best of intentions. I imagine a product designer waking up with a start, a half-remembered dream still swirling about in his head: a noble buck standing in a snowy meadow, its majestic antlers thrown back, nose to the wind, the crown of its head waving back and forth as if in greeting. As he sat in bed scribbling down his idea, I’m sure the guy imagined that his beautiful sculpture would fill us all with a sense of delight and holiday cheer.
What it actually fills us with, of course, is dread and terror. The fact of the matter is that the decoration is, essentially, a bleached deer skeleton. The magical holiday wonder of the Christmas lights attached to its bones isn’t enough to distract you from the hollow stare of the eyeless creature as it gazes soullessly at the heavens. The moving head isn’t helping things, either. It moves fast enough for it to appear slightly alive but slowly enough to seem undead, and after a while the squeaking noise starts to sound like the rattling of chains. “We are the walking dead,” it seems to say. “Have a wonderful and joyous holiday season…”
In short, I love it. It’s a concise summary of my feelings about the holidays. I won't be thinking of sugarplums this Christmas - instead, my head will harbor visions of Squeaky, the zombie reindeer.
I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks – Indiana for five days, and then four days in New York. Have fun while I’m gone! I promise that I’ll have lots of hilarious stories when I get back. If you get depressed, just think of Squeaky.
Here are some slightly more artistic pictures in case you're interested:
Gaze Into The Eye of Squeaky
Happy holidays, everyone! If you're not celebrating any holidays, then I wish you as average a week as possible.