What is the deal with decorating cars for Christmas?

I still remember one of the first times I ever saw a car sporting a Christmas wreath. It was many years ago in Alexandria, Virginia (a suburb of Washington, DC), and I was either sitting at a stoplight, or I was waiting at a light to make a left turn. Suddenly, a huge older-model Cadillac came lumbering toward me in the oncoming lane. Now, it was already a "Look at me!" kind of car, but to add to the ostentatiousness, they'd wired a huge Christmas wreath, complete with red bow, to the front grill of the car.

I remember the mix of emotions as I saw it--first, slack-jawed wonder, because I'd never thought to do such a thing and, as far as I knew, didn't know anyone else who would either, and second, a fit of snarky giggles, at how ridiculous it looked.

Many years and 135 miles to the east later, I was out doing errands and suddenly became aware that there were quite a few wreath-festooned cars going by. I stopped at the grocery store and ended up parking nose-to-nose with a wreath. It made me realize that, all these years later, I still don't get why people feel the need to wire a Christmas wreath to the grill of their car.

As I walked through the parking lot to the store, I spied the next generation of Christmas-decorated cars, and laughed out loud--a car had large felt antlers sticking up from the driver's-side and passenger-side windows. Now I had to admit, that was cute. It didn't elicit the same head-shaking "Why on EARTH?" reaction as the grill-wired wreaths. It was as if someone was having a little fun with the silly habit of car decorating. Now that, I can understand.