Decorating for the holidays at the Widmer house was much the same as everyone else, a few runs of C9's and a plastic Santa. The year was 1980 and we decided to go a little further. We sent away for a U-Build plan of Santa, Ms. Claus and the Reindeer. This required cutting out each piece and painting and assembling. This first scene can still be found in the rear display areas. They are a little worse for wear but still a favorite with the people.
From there we moved to creating the nativity scene and started adding at least one major item to our display each season. We began building motorized items and the merry-go-round was our first try at holiday mechanicals. We added several until we had a small home town fair.
Mini-lights started becoming more popular so we started retiring C9's and C7's which probably was a good thing as we have maxed out our circuitry using a full 200 amps.
We began to add sculptured pieces before they started showing up in every store in the bay area. We continued making scenes from wood, adding sculptured pieces, utilizing the new blow-ups for accent and of course topping off with lights.
We continued to expand from the front yard to the side yard to the rear of the property where we previously built a 7 hole miniature golf course. We now light 100% of our yard.
Decorating has involved all of our family and takes 100's of hours to prepare the scenery for our December opening. We normally start repairs and painting in July and start working on the back yard scenes in early November.
For those within our area come give us a look, I think you will find the time most enjoyable. Or check out our progress as we add pictures to the web site.
