Each year on the day after Thanksgiving, the plastic penguins that live in the garage of the Brennan family in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, begin migrating to the front lawn.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote a cute story about the Brennans’ penguins.

It’s a Christmas card to the whole neighborhood and countless passers-by that is both anticipated and appreciated every year. … Most passers-by slow down and take a look at the latest development, and quite a few stop by with cards and thanks and cookies and compliments every year.

How fun to see distant cousins of our flamingos having fun, but it’s sad that they only get to see the light of day from the day after Thanksgiving through the holidays.

Our penguins get out and about all the time, waddling from yard to yard, helping folks in the Ozarks celebrate birthdays, graduations, telling people to “chill out” or how cool they are.

If you’d like our penguins to visit someone you love for their birthday or other special occasion, just contact AGreetingYard.com by emailing us at info@agreetingyard.com or calling 417-823-3915.

\In Woodstock, Illinois, about 60 miles north of Chicago, Christmas lawn ornament displays set up by homeowners in their own yards are subject to a certain amount of theft and vandalism each year, as are displays put out by businesses like AGreetingYard.com across the country. It’s a fact of life that we often discuss at the Lawn Greetings Association.

But in December of 2004, the police department in Woodstock, Ill., said that it seemed vandalism was higher than usual.

The Popovits family found a homemade sign planted in their illuminated plastic nativity scene. The sign a play on the recently popular “What Would Jesus Do?” trend, asked, “Would Jesus use this much electricity?”

From the Dec. 22, 2004, issue of The Washington Post:

“There will always be some young people who are drinking who would smash a menorah or a Nativity scene, whatever is there,” said William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, which places a Nativity scene in Central Park and has received several dozen reports of stolen Christ figures from around the country. “But this is happening so much this year, I can only see it as part of the trend of Christian-bashing and trying to stamp out Christmas. It started with the criticism of the Mel Gibson movie ["The Passion of the Christ"] earlier this year. The culture wars are at their height right now, and this is part of it.”

But Omar M. McRoberts, a University of Chicago assistant professor of sociology whose book about religion in poor neighborhoods was published last year, thinks the thefts have more to do with economics.

“It’s a function of the commodification of this holiday, of the fact that people are competing to have more and more elaborate displays outside their houses and these are things you could get a good price for on eBay,” he said. “It’s ironic that a holiday which is essentially about poor people having a baby in an animal’s food trough is represented with these expensive ornaments.”