Dear Council Environment Department,
December again and out come the Christmas light displays on local houses, bigger, bolder and more brash than last year. Isn’t it about time someone from the council took these households in hand and reminded them that using enough electricity to power a NASA space station for a year is Not Environmentally Friendly?
For the rest of the year you plead with us to fill in our Green Pledge on your website, to recycle and compost and bike to work. You even sent us a couple of those environmentally friendly light bulbs. Free! So why do you allow people to deck out their homes like florescent wedding cakes to the extent that I imagine our small street can be seen from space like some kind of flashing Great Wall of South London?
Take my neighbour, for example. His Christmas lights flash all day and all night with barely a brick left uncovered. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve woken up in a cold sweat with my hands in the air shouting ‘you’ve got me, officer, I’ll come along quietly!’ only to find that the blue, blinking light was in fact Frosty the Snowman’s flashing eyes.
Another disturbing feature of this particular display is the life-size Father Christmas figure he has climbing up the outside of his house. Look, we live in South London. When a man dressed in dark clothing is sighted climbing up someone’s house with a large sack under his arm it’s usually cause for alarm. Remember last year when Mrs. Smith at number 45 phoned the police to report a very persistent burglar who kept trying to get in night after night? You know this frightens the life out of her and yet year after year there he is on the roof with his evil flashing eyes and black bin bag flapping in the wind. You tell me that sometimes these displays are for charity and the kiddies like it but the kiddies can set fire to the school bins again if they want a nice, shiny display.
Here I am at home, heating on low, cheerfully wrapped in a blanket in the semi darkness of that environmentally-friendly bulb chomping on bendy carrots (no food waste here, no siree) hands so cold I can barely write this letter while the national grid is being stretched to breaking point. I swear it takes twenty minutes to boil my kettle during the month of December.
So please, dear council, consider banning these crazy light displays next year.
Yours, slightly dazed through lack of sleep.
I could not agree more with ‘Slightly dazed through lack of sleep’ – what a waste of energy; along with most of the population, I too, have spent the whole year turning lights off and the heating down – only to have our ‘green’ efforts nullified by the mamoth waste of electricity on so called Christmas celebration lights. I’m not even convinced that kids are impressed by these amataurish efforts – not a patch on the traumatic daily dose of brain bashing oloured lights exploding from TV games stations. Oh! for the days of paper decorations
Ha-leigh-lu-yah. Ha-leigh-lu-yah. Some has seen the light – and lo………it shines too bloody brightly. Hear, hear I say. What utter madness! Have we checked the MP’s expenses for ‘Christmas Illuminations’? Wonder how they would try to get round that one with the tax man? There must be some secret code – they seem to ue so many! But back to lights, and the over-use of. If they can make owners of ‘over excited’ dogs’ on Esher common have licenses, and their dogs to be kept on leads, then surely we must be able to do the same for ‘over excited’ Christmas lighters! I was hoping to the see the star the Kings followed – no chance again this year – all I will see is twinkle and sparkle, twinkle and sparkle, twinkle and sparkle…….
Whoops! two typing errors in my piece – you lost the c in front of colour, and the second m in mammoth!!!!
Whoops! a couple of typing errorsin my piece – you lost the c in colour and the second m in mammoth. JJ
We have a way of sorting out these annoying problems up in Manchester – we pull the electricity point from the offending house! Job done!
I feel a little torn. Only last night cycling home in the dark I was amused at the twinkly light displays and flashing reindeer and I really love the modern fashion for tiny plain lights in natural trees. Its a matter of taste really as well as an issue of the environment. A half way point may be to restrict the amount of power anyone is allowed to use on outside display coupled with a curfew that keeps displays down to a couple of hours a night. Banning Christmas display altogether will only result in yet another of those “my kids school has banned the nativity” type reactions that certain newspapers and political parties use to convince us all that our cultural heritage (!) is being legislated away. Don’t get me wrong I’m not suggesting that inflatable 20 ft snowmen that wave their arms at you are exactly a part of British culture, but celebrating Christmas in a brash and gaudy way is to many. Some gentle restriction and some encouragement to revert back to less mechanical means of enjoying the right to make a show of yourself might create change in a fairly short period of time. Perhaps the local council could hold a ‘decorate your house using only recyclable materials’ competition to encourage people to put a bit of thought into it next year?
Ha it’s true. I thought I had burnt my retina while looking at a house clad in festive bulbs near me.
Wise words indeed people but I take your point, Gill. Banning things does put people’s backs up doesn’t it? I love the idea about decorating your house in recycle materials. Perhaps we can start with those free CDs they give away in the Sunday supplements…any clever ideas out there?
Why don’t the council fine these festive global warmers and use the fines to buy a couple of bags of grit to put on the roads. I have just risked life and limb to get down to the shops and back on the skating rinks that used to be called roads, and noticed that some grit wouldn’t go amiss. The only bits of highway where the ice had thawed was outside the houses that were decked with 10 mega watts of Christmas lights and red hot santas.
Err… Does no-one else think the poster is just having a bit of a laugh at people who take this stuff so seriously? I read it as an ironic piece… *shrug*
Well done to Sian Rowland for winning – not only is she a talented and amusing writer, but must be a nice person too; well done to her for donating her £30 prize to the Haiti fund where they need every generous gift.
is that realyy the best you could give a measly £30 to the winner you should have pu ton a few more 00 at the end of that sum and it would have been much better !!!! anyone agree