Do you think anybody has even bothered to tell the reindeer that they are out of a job?

I ventured out to Walmart yesterday. It was delightful.

And when I say delightful, I mean that in the most sarcastic sense of the word. Just in case you took it to mean that my little shopping excursion was indeed, delightful. It was not. Now normally, Walmart doesn't bother me all that much. I get in, I get out. It's not my first choice, but its cheap. And I am a fan of cheap. Because my husband just paid two hundred dollars over retail for a Wii.

It was very crowded at my local Wally World. I don't know if it was senior discount day or half-price Thursday, or what. I just know that elderly discount shoppers were well represented today at the old Walmart. Delightful.

I have nothing against the elderly trying to pinch a penny. If I was able to get a senior discount, I would most certainly go for it. 15 percent is nothing to snicker at. Especially if you are purchasing 64 bags of white socks to give as gifts to every member of your family. I personally do not wear white athletic socks, but five members of my family do, and they tell me they are delightful.

Despite the large crowds doing their Holiday shopping in the sock aisles at my Walmart today I actually found a great buy.

This cute, yet totally unpractical, piece of outerwear was rolled back to just 9.98. How can I not buy something that is not even ten dollars? I can not. I mean 9.98? HOLLA!

So I winked back at that little yellow rollback smiley on the sign and grabbed one for myself.

And I even remembered to pick up the Tide that I was there for in the first place.

I noticed there seemed to be a bit of a back up in the check out vicinity, which I believe was probably due to the fact that older Walmart shoppers seem to STILL WRITE CHECKS. Very slowly. And they insist on filling out those pesky checkbook registers right there in line. Whatever.

So, I thought I 'd be all sneaky and smart and head on down and pay in the garden center. Which is now kind of looking less like a garden center and more like the North Pole.

But there was a line there too. Which gave me plenty of time to take in all the eye candy that is Christmas in the garden center at Walmart.

And it was cute, festive even. There was music playing, the blow up snow globes had their fake snow a blowin' and the pointsettas were in full bloom. I may have even heard myself humming along to a Christmas carol.

And then I saw this. And I stopped humming. Because my mouth was hanging open at all the tackiness that was before me.

It seems that some holiday inflatable designer person couldn't just leave well enough alone and let the reindeer pull the sleigh. Like good ol' Rudolph has been doing since the BEGINNING OF TIME.

Somebody must've thought that these two guys were not getting their fair share of the Christmas time glory. Seeing as how it is winter and all. And they are tropical birds. And they are pink.

So they went ahead and came up with this.
Look! The pink flamingos! They are blow ups too! The pink flamingos are pulling the sleigh!

Delightful!

But you know what I found that was even more delightful?

I found that if you collect and display something like this

you can actually buy this to put right in between your white church and your little country store.

Because every small village, with snow dusted trees, twirling ice skaters, one room schools and flickering lights in the windows should have its very own Wal*Mart Supercenter.

Complete with its very own delightful little greeter in front.