I know that people like to be festive, and I'm certainly the LAST person who should be critical of others' holiday decorations, but...

I CAN'T STAND THOSE INFLATABLE LAWN HALLOWEEN CRITTERS!

It's just so obvious that the FatCat Executive of Creative Ideas sent a memo along the lines of, "If we have the sweatshops use the same dies for cutting nylon Christmas gewgaws but cut orange fabric instead, and then silkscreen jack-o-lantern faces on them, Voila! We'll have a fresh new profit channel! They'll sell like hotakes in February!"

The locals are just MAD about those inflatable halloween yard critters, in all of their 8-foot-high glory. My neighbors (a.k.a. The Woodspeople) haven't put up many of these, but I suspect that's just because they don't decorate for anything.

Like all the lawn inflatables, the Halloween critters have their charm while they're on, but by morning they're just a bunch of sad puddles of dead rip-stop, lying there like Oz witches after a storm.

OK, now that I got that out of my system, I sincerely apologize for offending any of you who may have one such critter on display in your yard. Go enjoy your lovely lawn thingie. Even if it is an exact replica of the Snowman critter, only orange-and-black.

Tomorrow I'm headed for Boston, where it'll be cold but the public gardens are still good for jogging any time of year.