We’ve seen the light, and it’s rather festive

By Tim Goodwin - Dec 17, 2013 | 0 comments

These bears up the quoteness quotient, for sure.

Santa’s workshop is always open this time of year.

The most realistic Santa this side of the North Pole is part of the display at Brad Towne’s house on South Main Street.

Santa Claus riding a bike? Why not? It’s all part of the super creative display at the Moore house.

The Moores’s display is so massive we got lost trying to get through it all and had to stop and ask directions from these helpful drummer guys.

Some would say that Clark Griswold began the Christmas decoration phenomenon in the 1989 cinematic classic, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Griswold, played by Chevy Chase, spent hours upon hours in the freezing cold to line his home with twinkling lights and his yard with Santas and reindeer. While the process may have been far from perfect, when Griswold finally got it all in working order, the results were monumental.

Of course, that was just a movie, but those extensive Christmas scenes do exist in real life. And some are even located right here in our fair city. For instance, take the Moores on Borough Road. Since 1992, Don and Nancy Moore have been decorating the home Don grew up in. What began with a few lights on the garage and front porch has turned into something that you must see to believe.

“It’s like a winter wonderland. I love walking around out there,” said Don.

Each year, the Moores add something new. And with more than 20 years of decorating, that’s a lot of expansion. It has grown so much that it takes up most of the property.

“We have an acre, and probably close to three-quarters of the acre is full of lights,” said Don.

This year, he added a Mr. Christmas Lights and Sounds of Christmas to his collection, where visitors can tune to 107.9 FM in front of his house and listen to 20 different Christmas songs while the lights rhythmically change with the music.

“Once you start, you’re like ‘I can go bigger and bigger,’” said Don.

He has six-to-12 foot lit trees (made out of PVC pipe) lining the back of the scene. There is Santa’s Workshop, his sleigh complete with reindeer, and even a penguin and polar bear see-sawing. If you can think of something Christmassy, then the Moores probably have it.

The process begins in September when Don checks all the lights. With about 25,000 on hand, that is a lot of strands to plug in. The construction of the scene began this year on Nov. 2 and Don, who has earned the nickname, Mr. Lights, said it probably took more than 40 hours to set everything up.

“It seemed like he lived out there,” said Nancy.

The Moores’s own personal festival of lights went live on Dec. 5 and is lit each night from 5-9 p.m., and will be until just after Christmas.

Before switching over to LED lights during the past couple years, the month-long display used to cost an extra few hundred dollars. But now they only anticipate an extra $60 in their electric bill for December, and it’s well worth it to them.

“It just makes you feel so good inside,” said Don.

With all the lights and decorations, Don actually has a storage shed specifically for his Christmas hobby. While it’s expensive to keep getting bigger each year, Don will buy most of his stuff right after the holidays and take advantage of all the sales.

“I guess it’d be my Black Friday,” said Don. “I’ve got a lot of the stuff from 50 percent to 90 percent off.”

For Brad Towne, his introduction to outside Christmas decorations came at a young age. Every year, his family would spend time lining their yard with lights and the tradition stuck.

With a small space to work with at his South Main Street home, Towne does all he can to bring Christmas to his neighborhood. He strings lights on the 20 bushes and trees in his front yard and has created a scene with Santa, presents and plenty of Christmas greens on his front porch. He turns his lights on around dark each night for all who pass by his home to enjoy.

“It’s got to fun. That’s why I do it every year,” said Towne. “When it’s done, that first night you put the lights on is great.”

Towne guesses that each bush and tree has between 400 and 500 lights and that it takes about eight hours to string them all. The rest of the decorations, which include a Christmas tree, is another five to six hours before the lights come on for the season.

The process begins in November and Towne said that’s because of what he learned as a child.
“I can remember as a kid, and it’s one reason I start in November, being outside in December a few weeks before Christmas with my parents putting up lights in the cold,” Towne said.

For both Towne and the Moores, this is just their own way of celebrating Christmas with complete strangers. It’s a lot better than asking random people to come in your house to look at your decorations.