Merry & bright
The Turners and their neighbors the Martins brighten up their road with a large display of Christmas lights choreographed with music on Long Mile Road in Prosperity.
Another “must see” Christmas display is on Gladden Road in Canonsburg. The house is decorated outside with an abundance of light. The highlight is a lifelike video of Santa that plays in the window. Santa walks back and forth, then peers out the window and waves.
At the end of a dark Long Mile Road, Rita and David Martin’s house shines brightly with Christmas decorations in Prosperity. The Martins and the neighbors, the Turners and Loves, brighten up their road with a large display of Christmas lights choreographed with music.
Several neighborhoods throughout Washington and Greene counties are merry and bright with the help of massive Christmas displays. For the residents who spent months strategically placing strands of lights and adorning their lawns with numerous blow-up and animated characters, Christmas just wouldn’t feel the same without all those lights.
Since the early 2000s, neighbors Karen Turner and David Martin have had a friendly, festive competition along Long Mile Road in Prosperity. Once the Halloween decorations have been stashed away, the pair start assembling their 15,000-lights displays. “We call it the Battle of the Bulb,” said Turner. “It started with our porches and grew from there. It’s all in good fun, and now it’s a tradition.”
A very large and bright tradition.
“There are at least 6,600 lights in the arches above the driveway alone,” Martin said of his display. “There are 96 extension cords out in the yard.”
Martin said the pair egg each other on. Each year, they said their trash talk starts earlier and earlier.
“Karen started thinking about Christmas in July this year,” Martin said.
“She asked me if I could help her this year with a snowman. I balled some hay for her and she started working on it.”
The 13-foot-tall snowman is new to Turner’s display.
“We try to change things out,” she said.
Another addition to this year’s displays is music. Visitors can tune their vehicle’s radio to a specific channel and listen to Christmas tunes as they drive past.
“I’m going with the Oglebay approach,” said Martin.
Although it’s a lot of work, both Turner and Martin said they love to see the faces of visitors as they pass by.
“I like to see the kids’ faces,” Martin said. “They get all excited.”
In Amity, Norm Arthur has spent the last 12 years expanding his display along Hathaway Road. Like Turner and Martin, Arthur starts pulling his decorations out after Halloween. From there, he spends weekends assembling his display for a similar reason.
“I have three young children,” he said. “I love to see their reactions when I turn everything on all at once. They get so excited.”
He uses past reactions as motivation as he stands outside for hours constructing his display.
“It’s time-consuming, but I don’t mind doing it.”
This year, due to space constraints, Arthur was only able to put up 15,000 bulbs.
“There’s another 8,000 in my basement,” he said. “I’ll do this as long as I can. My goal is to get over 100,000 bulbs.”
Once Christmas passes and the deconstruction begins, Arthur hits up local stores to find sales on the leftover Christmas decorations.
So does Canonsburg resident John Pavlek. Pavlek also visits a Christmas convention in Columbus, Ohio to find great buys.
For nearly 30 years, Pavlek has added items to his all-blue display along the 600 block of Gladden Road.
He slowly encroached onto his neighbors’ properties, who Pavlek said, love his display.
This year, he’s got 15,000 blue bulbs blazing, a red, white and blue Santa and arches over his driveway.
“We’re really into Christmas,” he said. “I’ve probably got 3,000 lights inside.”
Naturally, he passes out blue candy canes to anyone who stops by.
“I love doing it, and people love seeing it,” he said. “This is what Christmas is all about. In fact, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without all the lights.”