I've been watching the growing popularity of the Gemmy inflatables over the last two years. The prices have been dropping with variety and novelty increasing. Last year they started making inflatable snowglobes with blowing styrofoam snow. This year they're introducing inflatables with a working carousel inside! They even make an inflatable sumo wrester costume.

Surfing around, I found a Wall Street Journal article, and a link to AirblownWorld, and annual display of 1,000 Gemmy inflatables. A brief wikipedia entry says that the company is famous for the Big Mouth Billy Bass thing and started selling inflatables around 2001. There's a collector community where licensed and limited edition inflatables are traded.

These things are sold at places like large direct distributors, CVS, Home Depot, Walmart, Sam's Club and Target where I found our snowman for $29. I got a lot of impact for not much money when we lofted our snowman for Cianna today. She was fascinated by the unpacking. The setup is shockingly simple. Layout the form, zip a flap, plug it in to AC. The snowman filled out in about five minutes. When you install it outside, there are a few more steps involving the placement of ground anchors and strings.

Now I have to decide if I want to set this up on the porch outside Cianna's bedroom window or out in the yard.

- mike lee - wheaton, md