Christmas comes early to the neighborhood of Stonebrook Road, off Albion Road in Windham.
Just after Thanksgiving, decorative lights go up on houses, roofs, driveways and swirl up trees. On the neighborhood lawns, there is a radiant menagerie of snowmen, reindeer, toy soldiers and presents. And of course, there’s Santa too, waving as he pops out of a chimney or dances on a porch.
There is a feeling that one’s been transported to a neon North Pole while driving up the street and, each year, hundreds come to gander at the lights extravaganza lining the road.
The joke around the neighborhood is that this dazzling Christmas spectacle is “all for the kids.” But the truth is that some of the biggest “kids” in the neighborhood are the homeowners themselves.
“It’s just fun,” says John Pitts who lives with his family at 10 Stonebrook Road.
For three years, he, his wife Linda and two daughters Laurie and Julie, have dressed their house with twinkling stars and lights. A candy cane arch marks his lawn under which Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer shakes his bottom in the snow. Glowing toy soldiers keep guard of a polar bear, Christmas presents, Frosty the Snowman and miniature Christmas trees.
Pitts said it takes his family two days to put up the decorations. They spent $1,500 to spruce up this year’s display and Pitts said their electricity bill doubles during the holiday season.
On any given weeknight, about 25 cars, or “peepers” as he calls them, roll through the neighborhood to take a look at the neighborhood holiday decorations. On the weekends, there are more visitors. Some slow down to look. Others stop and watch the myriad of different flashing lights and characters from their cars. Pitts’ house has become the so-called centerpiece of the neighborhood decorations because of his dancing and singing Santa.
“We’ve been sitting in the living room and seen kids dancing with Santa on our front porch,” Pitts said.
Decking the house with Christmas cheer is a long-held tradition of the Pitts family. Pitts remembers helping his parents put Christmas lights on his childhood home outside Alliance, Ohio. In Alliance, these lights extravaganzas are celebrated townwide, he said, and there are even whole orchards decorated for the season.
On Stonebrook Road, there is a clear absence at the darkened residence of David Foss where the only decoration is a “For Sale” sign. Until this year, Foss, a Central Maine Power employee, was the neighborhood’s biggest displayer with hundreds of lights draped on his house and through the nearby forest.
Before he and his wife moved, Foss and Pitts held a friendly competition to see who would have the grander decoration. And now with Foss gone, other neighbors have boosted their Christmas decorations.
“It’s kind of infectious,” Pitts said. “With every year, people get more and more into it.”
David Field and his wife Gale live next door to the Pitts. Their children, Jennifer and Calvin, now help to decorate the trees and the house. There are lights down the driveway and his lawn glows with snowmen and reindeer. This year, they even put a special Santa in their chimney that rises up and down.
“The general tone of our neighborhood is we have a lot of fun,” Field said.
Pitts says he won the “tacky award” this year for his Santa in the chimney, though Field doesn’t feel this trumps the dancing Santa.
Dan Joseph and his wife Jennifer live on the other side of the Pitts. Though he is more of a “white lights sort of guy,” Joseph has stepped up the effort this year with a Grinch, lighted ribbon arch and white-light trees. His children, Kyle and Ellie, get excited to put up their own lights and to see what new decorations the neighbors have.
“I love this time of year,” Joseph said. “I’m always on the edge of tears or laughter.”
John Pitts, right, and daughter Laurie stand outside their house on Stonebrook Road in Windham with neighbor David Joseph. Pitts and Joseph are continuing the neighborhood tradition of a christmas lights extravaganza, complete with a singing Santa, which draws many visitors each night during the holidays.Send questions/comments to the editors.
