Street Carries On Holiday Tradition of Lighted Displays : Oxnard: Neighbors are turning their yards into colorful attractions for looky-loos that include Nativity scenes and animated Santas.

Come Christmas, there’s a street in every community where neighbors prop up brilliant yard displays, attracting looky-loos from miles around and causing bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Ventura’s Teloma Drive--better-known as “Candy Cane Lane”--was such a street for 38 years. But residents there tired of congestion and petty vandalism and decided to pass their tradition--and even some of their handmade decorations--to F Street, one of Oxnard’s first neighborhoods.

“Christmas Tree Lane,” on F Street between 2nd and 4th streets, already is attracting crowds to see its motor-driven Santas, elaborate Nativity scenes and “Peanuts” Christmas displays, even though the colorful lights will not be turned on until Dec. 11.

“Everybody is working real hard to get their projects together,” said 65-year-old Joe Solis, perched on a ladder while setting up lights on his roof. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun when you see the kids out here. They love it. They just go crazy.”

Neighbors on F Street have been planning the two-week event since January, when they met with residents of Teloma Drive, who decided to end their Christmastime ritual.

“They quit,” said Sharon Fleischer, who has lived on F street for 30 years. “We talked to them to see what we were getting ourselves into. Most of them were retirees, and they were tired of it.”

Although some F Street residents said they were concerned about increased traffic around their homes, most agreed that “Christmas Tree Lane” was worth two weeks of inconvenience.

Besides, neighbors say they are used to the hassle: F Street residents mount a similar display for Halloween that attracts thousands of people each year.

“I’ve only seen that many people at a holiday weekend in Disneyland,” said neighbor Toni Morris of the most recent Halloween turnout. “It was unbelievable.”

And F Street’s Christmas decorations were never going to be normal again, anyway--not after the Buratti family moved to the neighborhood in 1993.

Steve Buratti immediately told his neighbors that he was a “Christmas nut” and let them know he planned to dress as Santa Claus and put up some decorations.

“We found out how much of a nut he was,” said neighbor Ernesto Govea. “He put up a display 40 yards long.”

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Buratti soon persuaded many other neighbors, who had been putting up small decorations for years, to take part in a more grandiose, streetwide display.

And now that it is under way, residents say “Christmas Tree Lane” has brought them closer together than ever.

“We’re getting a new sense of neighborliness on this street that had not been present in years,” Govea said. “Now I know people from other blocks and we talk to each other.”

The preparations for the event, though sometimes tedious, gave neighbors something in common and served as a hobby, residents say.

Fleischer and her husband, Steve, began making wooden figures of Snoopy, Linus and Charlie Brown in August for their Christmas display; he carved and she painted.

“I wanted something different from ‘Candy Cane Lane,’ ” Fleischer said. “I was thinking that with our doghouse, we could do a Snoopy thing, and it just evolved from there.”

Residents trade props, and Oxnard city officials chipped in for a Nativity scene and other figures.

As her daughter, Dallas, sat in her playhouse Monday, Morris was turning it into a gingerbread house with the help of some recyclable paper and boxes.

“The response we’ve gotten is great,” Morris said. “We’re very excited.”

Meanwhile, Carol Cole of Teloma Drive, who took part in “Candy Cane Lane” for 21 years, said she missed not having the display on her block.

“I feel really badly,” Cole said. “I wish we could do it. We will decorate again next year, but not as big. Just as private citizens, not ‘Candy Cane Lane’ people.”