The Friday 4: Tacky Trends

Okay, so they're not really trends in the usual sense, but I really liked the alliteration. Whether I'm witnessing these things or just hearing about them, I find them to be unacceptably ick and surely I'm not just being a prude (?). 

4.  Leaving up outdoor Christmas decorations year-round 

I will admit it:  I've got a thing for interior Christmas decorations, namely the tree. In fact, I just asked Brad the other day if we could put up the tree. His response? "It's a little early." He's probably right - especially since we'll likely have it up from after Thanksgiving till March. 

Your house should not look like this in March. 

That said, my family and friends are the only ones who have to suffer my out-of-season indoor Christmas decorations, whereas leaving up your blinking lights and icicles 365 days a year affects not only your neighbors but all passersby. It's jarring and confusing to those innocent bystanders, and it's just plain laziness on the part of the offenders. Take the darn decorations down, you tacksters; take them down. 

3.  Having a "sprinkle" 

That is, a smaller baby shower for a second (or third, or fourth) child. 

I never even heard of such a ludicrous thing until Amanda got invited to one (and then another and another and . . . ). I'm sorry, but you had your shower for your first child - and if you didn't, sorry, but the time has passed. Suck it up and buy what you need yourself. Your good friends and close family members will likely shower you and your little one with presents when the big day arrives anyway. Why should people, many of whom dropped $50+ on you the first time around, be expected to do so again? 

Nope. Sorry. It's tack-ay. 

2.  Parking on your lawn 

Veto. Veto. Veto. 

Really? Is your driveway so short, your garage so crowded, your street so narrow, that the only place you could feasibly park was in the grass? Cars, however nice or small or shiny or whatever they may be, are not lawn decorations. They are means of transportation, and last I checked, the appropriate repository for means of transportation not currently in use is not the front yard. 

Unless you're living out in the wilderness (Shannon, this means you), you've got neighbors who have to look at that car on your lawn. So get the keys, turn the thing on, and move it somewhere else - preferably to a paved surface. 

1.  Wedding shower without the wedding 

No, I'm not referring to when someone has a shower and then the wedding doesn't happen. I'm talking about when a couple has a wedding in an exotic location, or maybe even a courthouse ceremony, and no one is invited - but the bride-to-be also has a shower to which everyone is invited. 

Look: most people, myself included, hate going to weddings and hate going to showers, too. They're tedious, eat the entire day, and after about the second one, start to seem inane and identical to one another. 

If you're not having this, 
don't have a shower. 

But we nevertheless attend, when we can't come up with a good excuse to get out of them, b/c, well, we have to. The wedding deal is "I give you $/a present and you feed me and provide me with terrible music for 4 or so hours." The wedding shower deal is "I give you more $/another present and you feed me probably really bad food and we play dumb games for 2+ hours in anticipation of my giving you $/a present and you feeding me and providing me with terrible music for 4 or so hours." The wedding, as you see, is crucial to the shower logic. 

Everybody likes presents. It's as natural to human beings as breathing air and criticizing others. But if you're not wasting your money throwing a big bash for other people to not really enjoy (I do so love mocking the wedding industry), then it's not right to ask them to come on over and give you some stuff. To do so takes the tacky cake.