What is Kitsch?

Beth and I went to visit my grandmother for a couple of days between Christmas and New Year, which was nice. It also gave me an opportunity to get a peek of how the resident at her retirement home a few doors down had decorated for the holidays. This was chiefly interesting because Josh and I had been rather impressed by the tackiness and kitschiness of her display when we were there at Thanksgiving. So I had high hopes for Christmas. And my oh my, I was not let down. However, in obtaining these photographs, I did very nearly embarass myself (and by extension possibly my grandmother) mortally, as the woman came home as I was walking away from having been taking the pictures. Now given that the last pictures I was taking were just of the little green reindeer, I feel that I could just have made some witty quip about wanting to take a picture of the adorable and cute little green reindeer and everything would have been alright. But instead I was flustered, and I said nothing at all, and now I feel rather awkward. Oh well.

Anyway, for all you people wondering what kitsch is, here’s your answer:

I’m particularly fond of the tree, which would really have been sufficient all on its own to make her doorway look christmassy and yet also utterly tasteless and tacky. Here it is in a bit more detail:

On the other side of the door (not visible from the first picture), we had Beth’s favorite feature of the display, our little angels (or maybe choir boy and girl?) howling at the moon:

Finally, I simply cannot let our little friend the green reindeer escape without a closeup shot. This also gives me a good excuse to use the macro lens feature of the camera, of course. I’m really not sure what the message conveyed by this guy is. Suggestions?