Countywide : Simi Valley : Family of Elves Has Been Busy Again

It’s a place where people of all nationalities, the rich and the poor, Santa Claus and Cinderella, even extraterrestrials, stand side by side in peace during the holiday season. Blanketed by decorations, lights and 40 different homemade motorized characters, the home of Phyllis and John Becker at 1332 Sycamore Drive in Simi Valley has been a gathering spot for visitors from around the community and around the world for the past 28 Christmases.

“We’ve had tourists from Europe, South Africa, Australia, everywhere, tell us they made a special trip to come see the house,” Phyllis Becker said. She estimated that about 10,000 people view the home each year between the time the decorations go up on the weekend after Thanksgiving to the time they come down on New Year’s Day.

It all began when Phyllis Becker, always a lover of arts and crafts, built a motorized train and track and decided to move it outdoors. In years to come, the family would cover the lawn with an 8-by-10-foot merry-go-round, Santa’s workshop with elves building toys, an antique dollhouse and motorized characters, all built by the family’s “own hands, saws, hammers and nails,” she said.

Visiting children would advise the family of new, important characters that needed to be added, such as Cabbage Patch Dolls and the outer space creature E.T. This year family members spent so much time building a new castle, along with Cinderella’s carriage and horses, that they didn’t have time to make the much-requested Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

In addition to the display on the lawn, a Santa Claus, played by various neighbors and relatives, visits the garage on weekend nights to talk with children.

“We’ve been doing this for so long that the community grew up with it,” Becker said. “Some of the children that came to look at the house when we first started are now young parents and bringing their own children.

“In this busy world, there are only a few places you can go back to and remember the way things were.”

Because of this sense of community, Becker said, neighbors ask to help pay electric bills, people are careful not to damage the structures, and in the 28 years of visitors freely walking around the front and side yards, only a couple of small objects have disappeared.

“It does take a lot of time to do this each year,” Becker said. “But it’s worth it when you go out there at night and feel all the love you get back.”

There are some other notable holiday decorations this year.

Santa Claus and his reindeer will fly through the sky Christmas Eve as Aspen Helicopters Inc. of Oxnard pulls a lighted outline of the characters along the coast.

Candy Cane Lane, the perennial favorite on Teloma Drive in Ventura, features almost 30 houses decorated with masses of lights, Nativity scenes, sleighs and giant Christmas cards. Lights are on from 5:30 to 10 p.m.

Residents along Channel Islands Harbor and Ventura Harbor traditionally cover their houses with lights, providing some brilliant reflections on the Pacific waters. Viking Realty sponsors annual decorating contests for the Channel Islands Harbor crowd, prompting some neighbors to try and outdo each other. This year’s Best Overall winners, the Buurs on Romany Drive, have a double lot that they decorated with lights, silver bells and drummer boy figures.