The Briefing Room
State Chapters => Texas => Topic started by: Elderberry on November 16, 2019, 03:24:51 am
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News4SA by ROBERT PRICE 11/11/2019
How soon is too soon to start putting up Christmas decorations? A battle over a snowman in one Texas neighborhood is putting that question to the test.
A snowman, some reindeer and a Santa hanging from a helicopter. These are just some of the decorations on display in front of the Simonis home in the Lakeside at Canyon Springs subdivision.
The decorations have been up since Nov. 1, but the neighborhood's homeowners association, Diamond Association Management & Consulting (DAMC), says that's too early. On Nov. 4, DAMC sent the Simonis family a letter informing them of the violation.
More: https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/too-soon-festive-family-told-to-take-down-christmas-decorations (https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/too-soon-festive-family-told-to-take-down-christmas-decorations)
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"A snowman and Santa are Thanksgiving decorations."
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"A snowman and Santa are Thanksgiving decorations."
Everything is bigger in Texas.
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Many years ago, I lived in a Houston burb for 4 years and a subdivision with a HOA.
Me and the property Nazis went to war at least a half dozen times for things like (1) Bag of landscaping mulch that had set in my driveway for 2 hrs. (2) Not notifying them I had installed a new storm door w/o blessing of the almighty archetectual committee. (3) Landscape string light had one bulb out. (4) Kid left big wheel on sidewalk in front of house.
Note to anyone who may want to listen..... Avoid places with HOA's like the plague.
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Many years ago, I lived in a Houston burb for 4 years and a subdivision with a HOA.
Me and the property Nazis went to war at least a half dozen times for things like (1) Bag of landscaping mulch that had set in my driveway for 2 hrs. (2) Not notifying them I had installed a new storm door w/o blessing of the almighty archetectual committee. (3) Landscape string light had one bulb out. (4) Kid left big wheel on sidewalk in front of house.
Note to anyone who may want to listen..... Avoid places with HOA's like the plague.
Theoretically, HOAs should just maintain community facilities/services and discourage gross neglect by a property owner so inclined. In reality some devolve into mini-tyrannies and means by which petty A-holes can harass people they decide to hate. Sounds like you had a neighbor or three of the petty A-hole variety.
I think our neighborhood was developed - immediately post WW2 - before HOAs were around. Being 7 decades old, not many houses are the same shape they were when first built, so the cookie-cutter look is long gone.
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I rented a condo with a HOA, Direct TV has just come out so I shelled out $840.00 for all the equipment I'd need to
receive Direct TV. I'd mount the antenna on a kitchen chair and put it out on the pouch when I wanted to watch TV. Then
at bed time I bring the chair back in side. After a few days the HOA told me that satellite receivers were not allowed. Now
this was back in the day where satellite receivers were at least 12 feet in diameter, mine was less than 2 feet in diameter
and mobile. I tried explaining that to them but they would not listen. So I ended up telling them to F off. Yup I just flat
out told them to go F themselves. Needless to say I was soon evicted.
When I went looking to buy a house I had two things I insisted on. Water Front and No Home Owners Association.
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Family Ordered to Take Down Christmas Decor ‘Until Closer to Holiday Season’
Keely Sharp
November 18, 2019
Every year it there is a social battle on when to put up the Christmas tree and other Christmas decor. It is the happiest time of the year, so naturally most people want to kick off that time as early as possible.
One Texas family decided to go ahead and put up their outside decor since the wife is heavily pregnant, and did not want to wait until she couldn’t physically do it.
“I feel kind of heavy, so the earlier we can put out the decorations, the better,†Claudia Simonis said, “Because probably in two more weeks, I’m not going to be able to build all this.â€
https://dailypoliticalnewswire.com/family-ordered-to-take-down-christmas-decor-until-closer-to-holiday-season/
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When you buy into a HOA you give up rights for the good people of the community, if you don’t know the rules ask, don’t want to follow the rules move somewhere without a HOA.
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When you buy into a HOA you give up rights for the good people of the community, if you don’t know the rules ask, don’t want to follow the rules move somewhere without a HOA.
Precisely why I will never live in an area with a HOA. It's my property and I will do as I D@MN well please.
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Unions and HOAs are two concepts that look good on paper, but it in the end wind up being controlled by people who don't have their members' best interests in mind.
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Christmas stuff shouldn't go up until after Thanksgiving. It distracts from Thanksgiving, which is far and away the holiday I most enjoy.
I disagree with the coercion, but not the sentiment. Let folks enjoy the turkey and trimmings before bombarding them with the rank commercialism and exhibitionism that Christmas has become.
It should come as no surprise that my favorite Christmas program is A Charlie Brown Christmas.
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Unions and HOAs are two concepts that look good on paper, but it in the wind up being controlled by people who don't have their members' best interests in mind.
Exactly.
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I worked for a company that in part managed HOAs. I would never, never live in one.
If I decide to put up Christmas décor on July 4th...it's my business.
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Christmas traditionally was celebrated for 12 days beginning the day of and running until the Epiphany. Advent hymns predominated until the 24th. Now people are so sick of the advertising that Christmas unbearable after the 25th.
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No way I'd ever be in one. In redneck country we keep the Christmas lights on the front porch on all year long like the song says.
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Christmas traditionally was celebrated for 12 days beginning the day of and running until the Epiphany. Advent hymns predominated until the 24th. Now people are so sick of the advertising that Christmas unbearable after the 25th.
That is so true...they start way too early. Much like politics...by the time the holiday/election gets here I'm pretty much burned out.
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No way I'd ever be in one. In redneck country we keep the Christmas lights on the front porch on all year long like the song says.
That's actually a sweet song.
Some of our family celebrations are more "Merry Christmas From The Family" 8888crybaby
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My subdivision dates to 1960. No HOA, just deed restrictions and a voluntary Civic and Recreational Assoc, that rents out the pool and club house and sends out a news flyer. Well they did. Pool was filled in 20 yrs ago and flyer stopped coming last year.
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No way I'd ever be in one. In redneck country we keep the Christmas lights on the front porch on all year long like the song says.
ROTFLMAO!!!
Me too. Beat me to it.
:beer:
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My subdivision dates to 1960. No HOA, just deed restrictions and a voluntary Civic and Recreational Assoc, that rents out the pool and club house and sends out a news flyer. Well they did. Pool was filled in 20 yrs ago and flyer stopped coming last year.
I am basically at the whim of Flathead County...
Which means I need an electrician to set the electric service on the house, and hook it up - Just the service. I can wire all the rest myself... And I have to get a permit for a drilled well or a septic tank, and I can't have a structure within 10 ft of my property line... but only if my neighbor says something. Which he likely wouldn't.
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I am basically at the whim of Flathead County...
Which means I need an electrician to set the electric service on the house, and hook it up - Just the service. I can wire all the rest myself... And I have to get a permit for a drilled well or a septic tank, and I can't have a structure within 10 ft of my property line... but only if my neighbor says something. Which he likely wouldn't.
That's pretty much what I'm used to. I never even knew my house had 3phase until the AC condenser coil blew and a friend was putting in a new(to me) unit and was going crazy cause he couldn't find how to get 120 for the fan motor. So I ran that 3phase into the garage and it powers all my big stuff. The power company pulled my Red Leg a couple of times, until they realized that I use it all the time and so it was grandfathered to me. I read a long time ago that Houston had more residential 3phase than anywhere else due to air conditioners.
When I was stationed in Pensacola, a shipmate moved his trailer into a spot way north of town. His wife called and called and couldn't get the power Co to hook her up. I took a look and saw her pole didn't have a meter. I found one on another spot that wasn't even tagged. So I moved it over and life was good. A few weeks later power went out so she called to report it. Of course they had no record of her address, so they came right out, read the meter and tagged it.
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I rented a condo with a HOA, Direct TV has just come out so I shelled out $840.00 for all the equipment I'd need to
receive Direct TV. I'd mount the antenna on a kitchen chair and put it out on the pouch when I wanted to watch TV. Then
at bed time I bring the chair back in side. After a few days the HOA told me that satellite receivers were not allowed. Now
this was back in the day where satellite receivers were at least 12 feet in diameter, mine was less than 2 feet in diameter
and mobile. I tried explaining that to them but they would not listen. So I ended up telling them to F off. Yup I just flat
out told them to go F themselves. Needless to say I was soon evicted.
When I went looking to buy a house I had two things I insisted on. Water Front and No Home Owners Association.
We decided to downsize and sold our home. We had considered moving into a condo with HOA. Hubby wanted something with a garage and can't do stairs so we moved into a house. But, cost wise, I still think we would have been better off in the long run with the condo. Yes, you pay an HOA fee, but it covers lawn care, upkeep of the building, and then depending on the community, they have other amenities like pools, club houses, gyms, hiking trails, golf courses, etc. More affordable I think really in the long run. As I age, I don't mind the close proximity to neighbors that most HOA's offer.
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Christmas stuff shouldn't go up until after Thanksgiving. It distracts from Thanksgiving, which is far and away the holiday I most enjoy.
I disagree with the coercion, but not the sentiment. Let folks enjoy the turkey and trimmings before bombarding them with the rank commercialism and exhibitionism that Christmas has become.
It should come as no surprise that my favorite Christmas program is A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Well, it does seem that the stores decorate and send out flyers and ads for Christmas earlier and earlier. But, I normally put up the Christmas tree(s) Thanksgiving week and I usually start to decorate the trees the day after Thanksgiving. I have two trees (I am a Hallmark ornament collector) and it takes me a couple of days to decorate the trees and the house so I start early so that we can enjoy them for awhile before taking them down and packing up the ornaments again.
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That's pretty much what I'm used to. I never even knew my house had 3phase until the AC condenser coil blew and a friend was putting in a new(to me) unit and was going crazy cause he couldn't find how to get 120 for the fan motor. So I ran that 3phase into the garage and it powers all my big stuff.
That's the very hard part of me moving back out in the sticks. The house can get by fine with solar 110... But my shop would die w/o 220. And 220 is a chore without the grid. A big enough solar array would be ridiculous, so it means firing up the gas/diesel welder/generator and let it run all day.
I am thinking about a water wheel to run a big jenny all the time, but getting that right will be a hot mess.
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That is so true...they start way too early. Much like politics...by the time the holiday/election gets here I'm pretty much burned out.
My neighborhood has a lot of families from India, they celebrate "Diwali", which is their festival of lights, the last week of October, so they basically put up Christmas lights then, and just leave them up...and now even the non-Indian families have adapted to it and put the lights up early as well.
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Christmas stuff shouldn't go up until after Thanksgiving. It distracts from Thanksgiving, which is far and away the holiday I most enjoy.
I disagree with the coercion, but not the sentiment. Let folks enjoy the turkey and trimmings before bombarding them with the rank commercialism and exhibitionism that Christmas has become.
It should come as no surprise that my favorite Christmas program is A Charlie Brown Christmas.
My mother had a strict rule, one that still carries on in my family - no Christmas decorations or Christmas music, or Christmas TV shows or movies until after Santa makes his appearance at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Not that we stopped doing Thanksgiving, by that time the Turkey had only just gone into the oven, or decorated or played Christmas music until the day after but it could absolutely be no sooner. Santa at the end of the Macy’s parade marked the “official†start of Christmas in our family. OK. My Catholic mother taught us it was the start of Advent but that didn’t mean we couldn’t start celebrating before then.
It was also my mother’s tradition that the Thanksgiving turkey could not go into the oven until after us kids, and later her grandkids, after thoroughly washing their hands before and after of course, gave the turkey a good pat for good luck. I have no idea where that started but I carried that on when I for years hosted Thanksgiving and my nieces and nephews and later their kids where at my house.
One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving, aside from all the cooking that I used to enjoy and the family gatherings at my house, although it exhausted me, was and still is the leftover turkey sandwiches.
Since my divorce and my downsizing and now living with a roommate who works for Amazon and will be working on Thanksgiving and I no longer host family Thanksgiving dinners, and even when I go to my niece’s for Thanksgiving dinner, I will still make a turkey and some trimmings for myself and now also for my roommate just so I and now she can have that perfect leftover turkey sandwich – on thick sour dough bread, cranberry sauce on one side, mayo and salt and pepper on the other, turkey of course but also a slice of some good Swiss cheese and a layer of sausage stuffing. Nom! Nom! A jar of olives and I’m in heaven.
I will not go out shopping on Black Friday, in fact will avoid leaving the house at all costs, but will instead enjoy my favorite sandwich and binge watch some movies and start my online Christmas shopping in the comfort of my couch and in some comfy and necessarily very stretchy clothes.
The holiday creep starts earlier and earlier. Independence Day starts the “back to school†sales, Labor Day is when Halloween starts, no sooner is the Halloween stuff moved to the clearance rack is it Christmas merchandise all over. I was radio channel surfing in the car on my way to work today and several stations have gone to the 24-7 Christmas music mode.
I’m not religious but I love, absolutely love Christmas, but unfortunately by a week or so before Christmas, I’m mostly done. If it were up to me, the first day of Spring would be January 2nd.
I too love Charlie Brown Christmas and the album of the music is also a favorite of mine. I also have a tradition of watching the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol, the one with Alistair Sims, and it’s got to be in black and white, late on Christmas Eve, just before I go to bed.
But as far as starting “early†what really “frosts†me is the people who leave their Christmas decorations up too long, and I mean way too long.
If it were up to me, rather than those who decorate a bit early, there would be an increasingly harsh scale of punishment for people who leave their outdoor Christmas decorations well up after New Year’s, well after the 12 Days of Christmas is over. An exception would be made of course for Orthodox Christians who celebrate Christmas on January 7th but here’s my plan.
If you still have your Christmas decorations up by Valentine’s Day – it’s a $500 fine and a $1,000 fine for every inflatable Christmas lawn ornament still up with an additional $500 fine for each if they are still inflated and lit.
If you still have your Christmas decorations up by St. Patrick’s Day - it’s a $5,00 fine and up to a year in jail and if you are still displaying them, a life time ban on ever purchasing or displaying inflatable Christmas lawn ornaments. Additionally, if you have such poor taste to have put up one of those Star Shower Lazers and still have it on, you know the ones that make your house, and sometimes also your next door neighbor’s house (and you know who you are) look like what would happen if a unicorn while high on LSD projectile vomited Skittles on an endless loop from dusk to dawn, you forever lose your right to vote.
If you still have your Christmas decorations up by Good Friday – in addition to the above, it’s a $10,000 additional fine for each display and for each and every light and life in prison with no chance of parole.
Finally, if you still have your outdoor Christmas decorations up by Mother’s Day, you will be hung, drawn and quartered in the public square, your children and your children’s children will spend their lives in indentured servitude while dressed 24-7 as Christmas Elves, your house will be demolished and all its contents burned in a great bon fire dedicated to Saturn and the rights of Saturnalia, the property sealed off with concrete barriers and barbed wire, and the earth salted so nothing ever grows there again.
Merry Christmas! (If it’s not too early to say so) : )