Spirited Speech: City officials fail in bid to ban year-round holiday decorations

By: Conner Drigotas

When Germantown, Tennessee, officials taped a citation to Alexis Luttrell’s front door, they didn’t realize what they were up against. 

When code enforcement attempted to fine Ms. Luttrell with $500-per-day fines for the decorations in her front yard, they found themselves squaring up against a passionate woman with a law degree and experience as a professor in undergraduate mass communication law who was anything but satisfied to sit idle while local officials trampled her First Amendment rights. 

At issue for Germantown officials was a pair of plastic skeletons Luttrell originally purchased in September 2024 to spark joy during a difficult time for her family. They were an eight-foot plastic human skeleton, and a comparably sized plastic dog skeleton.

"My father was in the end stages of cancer, and my [27-year-old] daughter and older sister with an intellectual disability decided to set up the skeletons as a way to take their minds off everything going on. My sister's intellectual age is about eight to ten years old," Luttrell told Respect America in an interview. "It was a big project."

When Halloween had passed, the need for novel levity remained, so they decided to keep the skeletons up. Those skeletons received a series of new decorations to match the changing seasons. First there was election season which saw them holding campaign and issue specific signs, then came Christmas, and a new opportunity to spread cheer. “The first year, the decorations were pretty basic.” Luttrell shared, “The skeleton had a tutu and garland, and then we made a Christmas theme leash for the dog, and kind of gave him some festive extras.”

Image from the complaint

It was shortly after Christmas, on January 6, that the first complaint, citation, and summons to court appeared, taped to Luttrell’s door, demanding that the family take down the decorations that brought them together in a difficult time, or pay up.

Letter of the Law

“I read the ordinance, and I thought, well, I have them dressed up for Christmas, and the ordinance says you can only put decorations up 45 days before the holiday and have to take them down 30 days after. I reached out to the city and got zero response, and I thought, well, it's not 30 days after. And then shortly after that, they sent me a citation.”

The Germantown ordinance granted broad powers of interpretation to local officials who could use the statute to punish protected speech they disagree with, or enforce purity standards that limit how private property could be decorated.

“[The ordinance] left it up to one or two people in the city government to say ‘this is not a holiday decoration.’ To them, they had the freedom under that ordinance and how it was executed.” Luttrell said, “It's really ambiguous. The law just wasn't super clear… it revolved around someone else's personal taste and how they felt about it.”

Also frustrating to Alexis was the continued disrespect and lack of communication as she first attempted to resolve the issue with a conversation. 

“They actually just taped [the citation] to the door. Both times” she said. On top of not returning her phone calls, “They never knocked, trying to actually give it to me in person. Bit of cowardice on their part, but it is what it is.”

As is so often the case when attempting to coerce, government officials chose to hide behind a paper shield instead of engaging in human-to-human conversation. Good governance doesn’t come from a distant edict, though, and it can’t rightly infringe on property rights or speech.

It quickly became difficult for Germantown officials to ignore Luttrell, as local and national media began to publicize her story. “The New York Times reached out, did a huge story on it, and then reached out to the city, as well as the Today Show online.”

Interestingly, Luttrell says, city officials initially had a lot of “bravado” when speaking with the media. “The city with the media you know, it's ‘we'll take care of her,’ you know, ‘we believe in this, and we're going to fight it.’”

Cameron Ross, Germantown’s Economic and Community Development Director, even went so far as to brag about city officials’ success in bullying  “at least nine” others to take down decorations via citation, and doubled down on the cities soon to be eradicated power to unilaterally interpret the meaning of proper yard decorations.

“The resident in question has claimed the skeletons are Christmas decorations, but the City maintains they are Halloween-themed and fall outside the ordinance’s allowances,” Ross said.

Luttrell was the only one cited who didn’t take down the decorations.

Believe in Something

Like all good holiday stories, this one has a happy ending: With the help of the nonprofit law firm, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Alexis brought a lawsuit against Germantown officials, and they caved almost immediately. Not only did they repeal the Holiday Decorations Ordinance, but they also agreed to a $24,999 settlement, the maximum amount allowed to be approved by the mayor and city council, which Ms. Luttrell donated to FIRE.

The lawsuit, filed on February 12, 2025, challenged “officials unfettered discretion to arbitrarily enforce the Holiday Decorations Ordinance according to their own beliefs” and demanded the practice be ended so residents of Germantown can “express holiday cheer however they choose.”

Throughout the legal fight and beyond, Luttrell continued to decorate both skeletons and added additional inflatables and signs that were changed out depending on the month. The settlement agreement, signed on April 28, 2025, ensured city officials are no longer able to levy fines against Luttrell and others for practicing protected speech with yard decorations.

Luttrell also shared a variety of lessons from throughout this process, both positive and negative:

She lamented how city officials refused to take sound advice from attorneys at the nonprofit law firm Institute for Justice who reached out to city officials early in the process offering free guidance on extracting themselves from “a clear violation of the Constitution.” She also expressed regret that her neighbors were put on the hook for not only the final settlement amount, but also the cost of Germantown retaining outside counsel with an unknown price tag, instead of city officials being individually held accountable for their actions.

Luttrell says she has also been touched by numerous conversations with other members of her community who have thanked her for protecting their free speech, and who shared frustration with how the law had been used in the past. From rude and dismissive conversations to escalating fines over dubious use of the law, she says people are happy to see it go by the wayside and is glad to have played a role in making positive change happen.

“It boils down to: one person can make a change if you're not happy.” Luttrell said, “If we want to see change you've got to get out there, reach out, find people, talk to people. It works. I love that.”