Speaker 1: Ah, yes, the Christmas Dinosaur. It's one more thing.
Speaker 2: I'm one more thing.
Speaker 1: Did you, Joe Getty put up any outdoor Christmas decorations
Speaker 1: this year? No, not really, But in the past, when
Speaker 1: your children were younger, you did, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, absolutely different hood now And they actually have
Speaker 3: like rules on inflatables and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Oh really, I can believe that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: I've seen them flouted somewhat, which is fine with me.
Speaker 1: God, you are a certain sort of person if you
Speaker 1: would go complain about somebody putting up something for Christmas.
Speaker 3: But it's undignified.
Speaker 1: Uh, what the hell ever?
Speaker 3: Uh? But you used to put stuff up? Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: we had. My favorite one was a h an inflatable carousel.
Speaker 3: It was like a big like, you know, cylinder inside
Speaker 3: of which was a carousel in which Santa, a penguin,
Speaker 3: and an elf I believe were riding the carousel and
Speaker 3: it actually rotated.
Speaker 1: Oh that's pretty cool. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3: It was fantastic. Hey, and it was lit from within
Speaker 3: for a nighttime news.
Speaker 1: It was lit. You were lit. Everyone was lit. Katie.
Speaker 1: Do you have stuff outside? Yes?
Speaker 2: I do?
Speaker 4: Oh you do?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: I have a little light up candy canes and an
Speaker 2: inflatable snowman.
Speaker 1: I see, I wouldn't have been able to guess whether
Speaker 1: you'd be outdoor Christmas decorations or not. I have not
Speaker 1: found that that is a trait that goes along with
Speaker 1: any other traits that I can identify. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if there've ever been any like psychological surveys the
Speaker 1: kind of person that does this stuff or the kind
Speaker 1: of person that doesn't, But I've not seen any consistency.
Speaker 3: For the record, I would like to go full Clark Griswold.
Speaker 3: That would make me happy. I would like to go nuts.
Speaker 3: It's just a question of logistics and timing. And I
Speaker 3: just didn't really come together this year because I've got
Speaker 3: the standard stuff, because because I've.
Speaker 1: Known people with very outgoing personalities who do nothing and
Speaker 1: people who are like quiet into themselves who do a lot,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. So I just I don't know what
Speaker 1: is what makes you a I'm gonna dedicate the time
Speaker 1: and money to this or not, I don't. I haven't
Speaker 1: done anything for Christmas. I did a fair amount for Halloween.
Speaker 1: My dad never did anything when we were kids, and
Speaker 1: then when he got older before they retired and moved away.
Speaker 1: His thing was they in front of the garage, Like
Speaker 1: a lot of garage, you get two little floodlights that
Speaker 1: are white year round, but like two weeks before Christmas,
Speaker 1: he'd replace one with a green bulb and one with
Speaker 1: a red bulb, and then he changed again the da
Speaker 1: that was it. It was this old and people would
Speaker 1: say can you geta b up the red and green
Speaker 1: light bulb and says here, oh, you know, I am,
Speaker 1: but my son and I have started collecting as anecdotes.
Speaker 1: Where did when did this become a thing like the
Speaker 1: gym we go to. First they had an inflatable Santa
Speaker 1: playing the guitar. Okay, Santa, why is he playing the guitar?
Speaker 3: Ry? Fine? Then it doesn't play the guitar.
Speaker 1: Then then then it was added to it a robot
Speaker 1: with a Christmas hat. So you got a robot and
Speaker 1: a Christmas hat playing the drums, and I guess they
Speaker 1: were putting together the band slowly. Then it was a dinosaurs.
Speaker 3: Like a white stripes thing there for a while, drums
Speaker 3: and guitar.
Speaker 1: Then it was a dinosaur in a Christmas hat playing bass,
Speaker 1: and I don't know why a dinosaur or why a
Speaker 1: robot or any of these things. I'm missing the theme. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it has become very clear to me that there is
Speaker 1: everything is okay now, just any character of any sort
Speaker 1: you put it in a Santa hat and it's part
Speaker 1: of Christmas. I guess.
Speaker 3: Well, of course Dickens classic at Christmas Carol, he does
Speaker 3: mention the rock and roll Christmas dinosaur. No wait a minute,
Speaker 3: no he doesn't.
Speaker 1: Man, the people that really go big. We've got a
Speaker 1: couple of houses in our neighborhoods that are the how long,
Speaker 1: not not to mention what it costs, but just how
Speaker 1: much work would it be to put that up and
Speaker 1: take it down? Talking many, many, many hours? And yeah,
Speaker 1: do you do you have a guess as to what
Speaker 1: the personality trait is that makes you want.
Speaker 3: To do that? Oh goodness, that's an interesting question. You
Speaker 3: love Jesus the obvious answer when it's all Santa stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's right. Uh, I don't know exactly. I don't know
Speaker 3: how to describe it. I've met people like that, and
Speaker 3: they're usually like jolly people who are open, they want
Speaker 3: to talk to their neighbors, they want to interact with people.
Speaker 3: They're extroverts and generally fairly light hearted. I just like
Speaker 3: the way lights look, Yeah, I just I think it
Speaker 3: looks beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the lights.
Speaker 2: And then also my neighbors were putting out decorations and like, ah,
Speaker 2: I can't be that one house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm that one house in our little cul de sac. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm new to the neighborhoods, so they're already looking sideways
Speaker 1: at me.
Speaker 4: Yes, Michael, there's the neighborhood in where I live where
Speaker 4: they actually decorate full sized trees. They go to home
Speaker 4: depot and get a lift and put the Christmas lights
Speaker 4: on top of them.
Speaker 1: And has the neighborhood risen to the point of people
Speaker 1: drive from other places to go down the street. And yeah,
Speaker 1: which is its own thing. You either want to be
Speaker 1: in a neighborhood like that or you don't.
Speaker 3: Right right, I know, just speaking for myself, it reminds
Speaker 3: me almost of the relationship between like a performer and
Speaker 3: the audience. That anything I did, the energy would be
Speaker 3: returned by my kids.
Speaker 1: And they would be ensused.
Speaker 3: And so I think this is fun, and I'd add
Speaker 3: more or come up with crazier show ups and surprise
Speaker 3: them with something. It was just big fun. Now it's
Speaker 3: mostly just for me and I guess the neighbors in
Speaker 3: a way, and it's like.
Speaker 1: And the home depot, for instance, the giant category where
Speaker 1: they have a ten foot looks like Frosty the Snowman
Speaker 1: ten feet tall, different snowman, ten foot angel. If you
Speaker 1: want to go with that ten feet ten foot gateway
Speaker 1: with Grinch on top, so people would have to walk
Speaker 1: through your arch to get your house, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Lots of stuff, of course, is mentioned only in the
Speaker 3: Book of Matthew. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I remember that part. That's right, Doctor Susan evented the Grinch,
Speaker 1: and it's been my around my whole life. So it
Speaker 1: kind of seems christmasy, but it's not by nature anymore
Speaker 1: christmasy than a robot or a dinosaur.
Speaker 3: Right, a rock and roll Christmas dinosaur.
Speaker 1: Twelve foot giant sized motion led pre lit cone tree.
Speaker 1: What I like about this one is it looks like
Speaker 1: you take it out of the box, stick in the
Speaker 1: ground done. All you need is electricity, Yeah, perfect. Ninety dollars.
Speaker 1: Giant stuff has become very positive.
Speaker 3: How big is the tree?
Speaker 1: That thing was twelve feet, which is pretty tall.
Speaker 3: Now ninety bucks, that's change. Book back on your general grant.
Speaker 2: Huh, I also think these that is that.
Speaker 3: No, Benjamin's Benjamins are the hundreds, Grant is the fifty.
Speaker 3: I don't throw cash around much.
Speaker 1: He only deals with the big bills.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I think the inflatables are probably popular because they're so easy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you unplug it and the thing deflates and
Speaker 2: you roll it up and stick it back in the box.
Speaker 1: It's not that is an advantage. Like my giant Jack o' lantern. Man,
Speaker 1: it took me like five minutes to set that up.
Speaker 1: But the tethering, you gotta tether it, or your neighbors
Speaker 1: knock on your door and say, hey, you're pumpkins down
Speaker 1: the street. That's happening to me. That a couple of times.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's a good point. So to put up
Speaker 3: Christmas lights, especially if you go beyond the basics, is
Speaker 3: time consuming, frequently dangerous as you're dangling out over ladder
Speaker 3: reaching for the in the corner of the gutter and
Speaker 3: the rest of it. That's a hell of a lot
Speaker 3: of time and effort to get the wow. Or you
Speaker 3: could just go down to the home despot or the
Speaker 3: lows and spend one hundred and fifty dollars on some
Speaker 3: sort of fifteen foot tall rock and roll Frankenstein or
Speaker 3: robot or whatever it was with a Santa hat on inexplicably,
Speaker 3: and you'd get that same wow.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. You missed out on this, Katie because you're young.
Speaker 1: And they started wiring all Christmas tree lights in parallel.
Speaker 1: But before they started wiring them in parallel, they were
Speaker 1: they were wired in a single line, and so if
Speaker 1: one bulb went out, the whole thing didn't work. Oh
Speaker 1: and the only way you could find out where the
Speaker 1: problem was is go socket by socket with a bulb
Speaker 1: you knew worked until you found the dead one. And
Speaker 1: it was really a pain in the ass. And it
Speaker 1: was just part of the Christmas tradition every year at
Speaker 1: my house anyway, growing up.
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not too young for that. That's actually
Speaker 2: how I learned a majority of my cuss words from
Speaker 2: my dad around Christmas time.
Speaker 1: When you would oh yeah cool, yeah, he'd plug.
Speaker 2: Well, we made the mistake when you're putting them up
Speaker 2: before checking them and wow, was that some Christmas cheer?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: God dang it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's one of the famous lines from a
Speaker 1: Christmas story with Ralphie his dad. One goes out, they
Speaker 1: all go yes.
Speaker 3: Dad, Oh man, Oh that stresses me just to remember it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you get all the lights up on the tree. We
Speaker 3: did that I think one year without testing them and
Speaker 3: it was fed up.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's like, oh, yeah Christmas. My mom, who is
Speaker 1: very frugal because she grew up in a rough part
Speaker 1: of the country depression wise, was big on saving the
Speaker 1: tinsil every year. We weren't gonna buy new tinsil every year.
Speaker 1: So after we put all the tensil on the tree,
Speaker 1: then we had to pull it all down, one strand
Speaker 1: at a time and put it back in the box
Speaker 1: for next year. And that was like a two hour job, boy,
Speaker 1: to save us a dollar.
Speaker 3: That's frugality.
Speaker 1: That was part of the Christmas tradition. Oh you know,
Speaker 1: stock market crashes, the Nazis bar on the march. You're
Speaker 1: gonna wish you had that tintil back and goes the
Speaker 1: way she looked at it.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you guys remember back the late
Speaker 4: seventies how hot outdoor light bulbs used to get. You
Speaker 4: could put your hand on and you would burn yourself,
Speaker 4: serious burns.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, people would have a just completely desiccated, dried
Speaker 3: out Christmas tree by the twenty sixth, running incandescent bulbs
Speaker 3: on it that got super hot, with the obvious result
Speaker 3: in many a household. Mmoof.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess that's it.