One of my team members is somewhat psychotic about decorating for holidays. Actually, we used to have several such – the sort of folks who go overboard buying the latest giant illuminated inflatable Santas at Christmas, who buy up half Walmart in their quest to get a good deal on dancing hamsters dressed as Elvis, singing fish, and anything that lights up and is shiny (they’re kind of like the magpies of kitsch, really).

Anyway, the one psycho Person of Questionable Taste decided we needed something for the holiday doldrums; ie., that period between Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. So she went out and bought this lovely item, and brought it in and plugged it in for all to enjoy.

It lights up! It’s got fiber optics that turn different colors! It’s shiny!1!

You know, over the years, I’ve gone along with the flow on Team Travel, because the psychotics were running the show, and it was just safer to shut up and sit tight until the holidays were over. By psychotics, I mean people that have to buy and display every “hot” gadget that hits the shelves at Walmart and Target – especially if it lights up and plays a happy little tune. My ability to let it roll over me has helped me survive many a Halloween inter-team decorating and costume contest, which most years is an extravaganza (sometimes with singing and dancing and jazz hands).

In fact, I sometimes feel nostalgia for the good old days (as you might expect, they were pre – 9/11) when we used to completely transform each area of the office (we take up an entire 2 floors of this building) and compete for prizes individually and as teams. Just on our team alone, we built Gilligan’s Island (each cubicle was its own hut, and I was a school of tropical fish), Camelot (I was a beer wench), a live-action model of the city of Chicago with singing and dancing Rat Pack Art Cows (I was Dean Moo-tin). Probably the best one (and the first time we won the overall prize) was the year we re-enacted the “Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding” show. The bride wore white, but didn’t bother to shave his mustache off. Ah, how we cried (laughing) when the groom (one of the rabblerousing, hard-partying women with tatoos and a purple motorcycle) laid a long wet kiss on the bride during the judging and almost choked him out on her tongue.

Good times. Good times.

As I recall, the co-worker responsible for the “Psychobunny” came that year as a lady with two clingy toddlers, which she had made out of creepy old oversized “Cabbage Patch” dolls and which were strapped to her legs. Those damn dolls showed up every year after that – they made rather disturbingly chubby calves (heh) the year we were all Art Cows. They were pigs another year – she made snouts out of pink felt. Like I said: psycho.

Ah, the good old days. A lot of people have come and gone, including someone that was even more psychotic about holiday decor. She was also one of those can’t-stop-talking-about-every-mundane-task people. Oy. That woman could talk the shine off chrome.

Her aesthetic principles were along the lines of “More is more.” Two days after 9-11, she constructed a rather large American flag out of felt with hot glue and rather chubby-looking stars (why? Don’t they sell flags in this country?). And she hung it on the only uncluttered wall, where it stayed for 18 months (and looked horribly faded and tacky at the end, or was that the beginning?).

Thankfully, she left to take a job with the TSA, where her uncanny ability to stay patriotically on task for hours on end while talking a mile a minute was more in demand.

So my friend the Psychobunny’s tatty crapseasonal decoration is actually quite tasteful compared to some of the shit decorations we’ve displayed over the years.

Although I will say that last fall’s Halloween theme of “The Lava Lounge” was so popular that several of us bought lava lamps for personal home use (we found them soothing to watch when the phones were ringing off the hook).

Mine‘s on the mantel now.