Holidays Bring Out His Urge to Create Spectacular Yard Displays

On Halloween, the less than a quarter-mile trip from the Pasadena Freeway exit at Avenue 43 to Florencio Morales’ house on Griffin Avenue took a motorist nearly an hour.

Neighbors in the 4200 block of Griffin estimate more than 1,000 visitors passed Morales’ yard, taking pictures, or just staring in astonishment.

“The crowd filled the whole block,” said Carlos Mazariegos, 17, who lives next door. “The people were happy, they were astonished, they were amazed.”

Morales, 39, has become famous in Montecito Heights for the displays he puts up in his yard for virtually every major holiday.

On Tuesday, he put up “something simple” for Thanksgiving.

A life-size chef stands with a chicken in hand (“I couldn’t find a rubber turkey”) ready to carve it up for the holiday feast. The chef’s table is laden with fruit, vegetables, wine, candles.

Grapes, pumpkins, pears and apples hang from a nearby tree, and more plastic chickens are placed around the yard. The scene is set in front of a large U.S. flag and illuminated by flood lights and flaming torches.

And since Morales comes from the historic town of Teoloyucan, where rebel generals during the Mexican Revolution signed a peace treaty, he has recorded corridos --songs from the revolution--playing in the background.

Morales’ neighbors know that his yard will feature a display on holidays, however eclectic the scene may be.

“I think he drinks too much,” joked Lazaro Maldonado, 22, who lives next door. “But the kids love the Halloween stuff.”

The heart at the center of the St. Valentine’s Day display grows larger each year, as does the arrow piercing it.

Easter features three large crosses.

Mexican and U.S. flags adorn the yard on Cinco de Mayo.

Filled With Flowers

Mother’s Day finds the yard filled with flowers, and Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church conducted a Mass there this year.

Morales takes note of Labor Day, Veteran’s Day--even Aug. 13, the anniversary of the Treaty of Teoloyucan.

“Some people from other parts of Mexico don’t know about that day,” he said. “But it’s taught in all the history classes in Mexico.”

The next exhibit will go up Dec. 12 to commemorate the Virgin of Guadelupe, Mexico’s patron saint.

After entering this country illegally in 1971, Morales would return home every Christmas to see his family. But those trips ended when he brought his wife, Alicia, who he had married in 1979, back to the United States with him in 1980.

His nostalgia for his hometown and his relatives overcame him, and he decided to create scenes that reminded him of how holidays were celebrated in Mexico.

Childhood Ambition

“As a child, whenever I would go to Mexico City, I would see large, floodlit displays,” Morales said in Spanish. “I thought to myself that one day, when I’m able, I’ll do something similar.”

That childhood ambition and adult nostalgia led to him putting a hanged man in his yard for Halloween in 1981. With that grisly display, a tradition was born. That Christmas he created a manger scene.

“I would feel sad when Christmas came, and I was here without my brothers and sisters,” he said. “But when I made my decorations, they made me feel happy.”

With each holiday and each passing year the displays became more elaborate, attracting larger crowds.

Last year, Morales, a self-employed gardener, applied for legal residency and worried constantly whether his application would be approved.

“I promised myself that if everything went well with immigration, I would do bigger exhibits every year,” he said.

Figures on Display

Everything went well and this year’s Halloween display was one of the most elaborate he has mounted, with more than 30 figures: the devil, ghosts, ghouls, witches, Dracula, drunken soldiers, mutilated corpses.

“People came from San Diego, Santa Barbara, Fresno to see the display,” said Morales’ friend, Hugo Hernandez.

“It took me more than a month to put up the Halloween scene,” said Morales. “I’d do a little today, a little tomorrow. Hugo suggested that we have fog, so we bought cases of dry ice that made great fog.”

In addition to visitors from cities in California, Morales said people came from New York City, Texas and Chicago to see the Halloween scene.

“He has a really good imagination,” said Santiago Acosta, 40, a neighbor. “He’s also a very special person--helpful, listens to everyone.”

Morales said visitors tell him that his displays are unique, that nothing like them can be found anywhere. They also ask him who pays for them.

“One woman asked if the city pays,” he said. “No one pays. I pay. I don’t know how much. It’s not important.”

He said he was saddened when a woman stopped to admire a display and tried to make a contribution.

“My pay is when people come to look,” he said.

He said he has had a few complaints from neighbors about the music accompanying his displays being too loud.

“But I tell them that I never complain when they argue,” he said.

Once two elderly men came to the door, accusing Morales and his wife of being witches, he said. Their evidence: The music with the Halloween scene was the kind that only witches like.

Thanked for ‘Happiness’

Another visitor questioned him vigorously, wanting to know if he was really aware of just what the scenes in his yard conveyed.

“What you are conveying is happiness,” the man told Morales. “And thank you for that happiness.”

One of his favorite experiences came from a female visitor, una Americana, he said.

“She came by on the Fourth of July and stopped to look at all the flags and the exhibit,” he said. “ ‘Someone really important must live here,’ she said. ‘Maybe an ambassador.’

“I told her that I didn’t really know. I’m just the gardener.”