THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412160266
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER AND SCOTT MCCASKEY, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 240 lines
IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK a lot like Christmas in Chesapeake.
From Cornland and Western Branch to Great Bridge and South Norfolk, Chesapeake homes are flush with holiday spirit. Draped in traditional red and greenery or plugged-in like a thousand points of light, area homes are decked out for the season.
Readers have been calling The Clipper to let us know when they found a house that was especially well decorated. We visited a few of the standouts and talked to the residents.
So, postpone those holiday chores and follow our lead on your own Chesapeake Clipper holiday tour:
The Wellings home
1316 Wingfield Ave.
Yes, Chesapeake, there is a Santa and Mrs. Claus.
They are Jerry L. and Chris R. Wellings of Wingfield Avenue.
The Wellingses play the roles of Santa and Mrs. Claus, greeting children in a tent set up on the front lawn of their home. The house itself is decorated with 18,000 lights.
The couple began decorating their home eight years ago, starting with a modest 3,000 lights. Each year the decoration scheme got more elaborate, with more lights and special displays. The Wellingses' home now features thousands of colored lights giving it a festive glow. There's a lighted Santa and reindeer, a Nativity scene and many other holiday decorations.
Setting up the elaborate display begins the first week in November and is finished and lit up every Thanksgiving Day, making it a holiday tradition in the neighborhood, with the neighbors gathering 'round to witness the grand illumination.
The home also features a special pavilion where Jerry Wellings, an auto body teacher at the Norfolk Vocational and Technical Center, plays Santa to children, from newborns to teens, who drop by every evening to sit on his lap, receive a candy cane, a hug and loads of seasonal joy.
``Last year, we saw about 1,600 children,'' said Chris Wellings, who teaches special education at Western Branch High School. ``One girl who used to live in the neighborhood had moved to Great Bridge, but she returns each year to see us. She really doesn't believe in Santa, but she tells us she gets her parents to bring her every year because this is her Christmas tradition.''
The couple purchase scores of white, stuffed bears every year to give as gifts to sick children or kids who will be in the hospital during Christmas. Last year, they gave away 90.
The Santa act began six years ago, Chris Wellings explained.
``At first, we would stand by the street to see our lights and we would wave to people who drive by,'' she said. ``Then my husband and I would put on a Santa hat and then we would put on a Santa coat and so on until we finally became Santa and Mrs. Claus.''
The Wellingses set up the Santa station most evenings, seeing kids for a couple of hours each night. They give out free candy canes donated to them by the Tidewater Streeters car club and Posie's Heating Co.
``My husband is serious about being Santa,'' Chris Wellings said. ``If his students see him and say, `Hi, Mr. Wellings,' he just stays in character and tells them he will pass on the greetings to Mr. Wellings when he sees him.''
On New Year's Eve, the Wellingses don't go partying. They set to work at the stroke of midnight taking down all of the outside lights, special effects, ornaments and decorations. By the morning of Jan. 1, all that's left is a plain house with nary a sign of the season anywhere.
``We don't let it linger,'' Chris Wellings said. ``The next day it looks as if it all magically disappeared.''
The Wellingses say they do what they do out of pure joy.
``Our two sons think we're crazy,'' she said with a laugh. ``We do all this just to keep the spirit of Christmas alive, and we like to see that spirit in other children.''
The Roberts home
3401 W. Landing Drive, Cornland
It's a mansion year-round, but during the holidays Sparky and Katrina Roberts' 8,000-square-foot home is truly a spectacle of good taste. Decorated partly in Colonial fashion, it has all the trimmings: a prodigious fruit fan of pomegranates, apples and pineapples over the front door, 450 feet of pine roping along the porch railings and wreaths, garlands and red bows at each of its 65 windows.
But the Robertses aren't stuck in the past. Their decorations include modern conveniences like electricity. There are more than 13,500 white lights on and around the three-acre estate, with nearly a half-mile of extension cords in between.
``We love to decorate for Christmas,'' said Sparky Roberts. ``I started hanging lights in the trees when we moved here in 1992. I guess there are about three times as many now.''
Katrina Roberts is from Southampton, England, where she said Christmas decor comes more from natural resources.
``I'll snip boxwoods, holly, magnolia leaves or nandina berries out of the garden and put them into different arrangements,'' she explained. ``I'm a real scavenger, and I like to be creative.''
The mix of old world and new is impressive.
The Robertses' decoration efforts begin on Halloween and run right up to the final days before Christmas. The neighbors love it, they said, but it's really their children.
``We tell Dexter and Elizabeth we have to light up the house so Santa will see it.''
The Mathias home
4128 Stephanie Boyd Drive, Western Branch
Daryl and Sue Mathias have always decorated for the holidays, but when they bought a Victorian-style home, they felt they had to buy all new ornaments.
``We wanted the decor to match the architecture,'' said Sue. ``We couldn't use many of our old Colonial pieces.''
The Mathiases traded in a lot of the traditional motifs of reds and greens for burgundies and pinks, although there are many red-and-green wreaths and garlands hanging from the windows and along the two-level porch.
While a reindeer and an attractive arrangement of white lights shine in the trees in the front yard, much of the home's charm isn't visible from the street or in the dark. It's in the details. Set in swags around the door and windows are dried flowers, gold angels and cherubs, silks and Victorian Christmas cards.
``You can't see a lot of it from the street; you have to come up close. I guess I decorate a lot for myself, but it's something I just love doing,'' Sue said.
But the ornate decorations haven't gone unnoticed. The Mathiases get many compliments, and the neighbors tell them that they have increased traffic on the street.
Being fashionable about Christmas decorations has had a price though.
``I hate to think what we've spent - a thousand dollars probably - but it is for Christmas,'' said Sue Mathias.
The Burke home
225 Millwood Ave, Great Bridge
Betty and Vernon Burke's Christmas display is so unusual that it has been the subject of television news broadcasts.
Though their front yard is filled with multicolored lights, a Nativity scene and other seasonal displays, it's the Millwood Express motorized, wooden train and six-horse carousel that are the real showpieces. Both hand-built by Vernon Burke, the rides attract more than 100 kids on some nights, some from as far as North Carolina. The yard is a virtual holiday wonderland for the children.
``Most of the neighbors love it, but I think there are a few Scrooges who don't like the crowds,'' said Vernon Burke.
The carousel can only handle very small children, but the three-car train can hold up to eight passengers. It rides along 330 feet of track, which stretches through the front yard of Charles Drake, an accommodating neighbor who helped build the carousel.
``I always wanted my own train, admitted Burke, who said Christmas brings out the kid in him.
He built the rides in 1990 at a cost of about $2,000. The first run was in '91.
The Burkes set up their displays at Thanksgiving.
The fun also comes with a good cause. Without being asked to, visitors began leaving money after visiting the display. Betty Burke suggested putting out a box and giving the donations to The Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk. Last year, they raised more than $700.
The Counts home
1200 Freeman Ave., South Norfolk
The firefighters at the South Norfolk Fire Station, across the street from the home of Brenda Counts and her father, Charles, never worry about falling asleep on any night shift during the holiday season. They have thousands of white holiday lights to keep them awake.
And they love it, said Brenda Counts. So do her neighbors in the quiet community at the intersection of Bainbridge Boulevard and Freeman Avenue.
``If my lights are not put up on the day my neighbors expect it, they ask when they will be lit,'' Counts said.
Counts has thousands of tasteful white lights glowing from her bushes, windows, porches and roof. There are lighted garlands and bows, lights in the shape of a tree, a large, white, illuminated snowflake, a glowing Santa, Frosty the Snowman and white wooden deer with lights.
Counts began her decorating about seven years ago, and it just grew and grew.
``I think it has reached its limit this year,'' she said. ``I really don't know how many lights there are, but I had to buy 600 this year just as replacements.''
Counts said she begins her decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving and puts up every light herself. It's a labor of love.
``Christmas is my favorite time of the year,'' she said. ``When I was little we liked to ride around and see all the holiday lights, and I thought I eventually would like to do something like that myself.''
The Harris home
3128 Holly Ridge Drive, Deep Creek
When Brent Harris was a boy growing up in Orem, Utah, he loved getting into the car with his parents to marvel at the neighborhood homes decorated for the holidays.
He swore one day he would decorate his own home like that. Now, every holiday season, he and his wife, Brenda, make good on that boyhood promise.
For the past five years (with the exception of last year, when he was stationed on a Navy ship), the Harrises have been putting up nearly 5,000 colored lights on and around their Deep Creek home.
The windows, doors, roof and house are all lined with lights. Four newly planted trees feature lights, as does his backyard fence. A garden plot also is lined with bright seasonal lights.
Harris said the neighbors look forward to his display each year.
``Once I forgot to turn our lights on, and a person who specifically brought his family and friends by knocked on my door and politely asked me if I wouldn't mind switching the lights on,'' he said. ``That made me feel great.''
Harris' property is so carefully lined and framed with lights, one would think he plans his designs on paper. But it's all done in his head, he said.
``I kind of picture in my head what I want and then put it up,'' he said. ``Each year I try to change some things and add new ones.''
Harris begins his decorating on Thanksgiving weekend. Working on an average of four hours a day, it usually takes him three days to get the job done. And when he's finished, he feels young again.
``When it's all done and lit up, I feel like a child standing in front of a candy dish knowing it's all mine,'' he said. ``Now I'm a grown-up child, and I'm doing what I wanted to do when I was a little boy in Utah.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
A reindeer and an arrangement of white lights shine in the front
yard at 4128 Stephanie Boyd Drive.
Chris and Jerry Wellings enjoy their roles as Mrs. and Mr. Claus and
Megan Graham loves to visit.
Sparky and Katrina Roberts' home is decorated Colonial-style,
including 450 feet of pine roping.
``If my lights are not put up on the day my neighbors expect it,
they ask when they will be lit,'' says Brenda Counts of 1200 Freeman
Ave., South Norfolk.
Brent Harris begins decorating his home at 3128 Holly Ridge Drive on
Thanksgiving weekend.
MORE TO SEE
All the decorated homes nominated by readers were wonderful to
view. But we couldn't write about them all. Here are some others
that were recommended:
The Fisher home, 1304 Holley Ave.
The Marshall home, 2516 Wild Horse Ridge
The Anderson home, 301 Windlesham Drive
The Allen home, 336 Gracie Road
The O'Gara home, 1133 Hazel Ave.
The Phillips home, 2228 Engle Ave.
KEYWORDS: CHRISTMAS LIGHTS by CNB