COVER STORY : Homes for the Holidays : Lavish Displays Transform Area Houses Into Yuletide Showplaces

It’s a crisp winter night and Chris Wilkinson is doing what she loves best--assuming the role of Mrs. Claus, matriarch of the Yuletide spirit.

Clad in a green and red dress, a curly white wig and round spectacles, Wilkinson appears before about 500 onlookers who have gathered in front of her darkened La Mirada home. Children perched atop their parents’ shoulders strain to get a glimpse. “I wanna see, I wanna see,” one child says.

“Where’s Santa?” asks another.

Suddenly, 10,000 twinkling bulbs light up the scene. Two model Ferris wheels spin and a choo-choo train chugs around a miniature frozen lake inhabited by skating toy penguins. People dressed as elves and reindeer strut down Candy Cane Lane to greet the applauding visitors assembled near the Popcorn Forest and a brigade of toy soldiers.

With a cheery grin, Wilkinson leads the group in a rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” as her husband, Tom, appears on the rooftop dressed as St. Nick. He waves, shouts “Ho Ho Ho!” and disappears behind the chimney.

The holiday season is in full swing in the Southeast area. Throughout the region, residents have built lavish, glowing displays that draw thousands of delighted gawkers who revel in the glow of lights and marvel at the expansive sets.

In Downey, residents along Yankey Street and two adjacent streets have created a three-block sea of glimmering lights strung from the smallest lawn bushes to the tallest trees.

In Cerritos, residents along Kings Row Avenue have built a block’s worth of displays, from simple Nativity scenes to a topiary sculpture of a reindeer with lighted eyes, to a country-Western Christmas scene featuring wagon wheels, haystacks and the facade of an old-time saloon.

A median strip dividing Daisy Avenue in West Long Beach is dotted with handmade miniature houses and cutouts of snowmen, joyful gnomes and Santa’s sleigh being drawn by a team of reindeer. The display, which is known as Christmas Tree Lane, continues a tradition started 41 years ago by the late Gertrude B. Whittle, a Daisy Avenue resident who received permission from the Long Beach City Council to decorate the median with the toy houses and a Nativity scene to teach area children about Christmas.

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In the posh Naples area on the east side of Long Beach, many residents have decked out their homes in a “Music of the Islands” theme. One display along the canals features a five-foot stuffed Santa in a grass hula skirt.

Though excited parents and children flock to these displays, there also are detractors, many of them neighbors who complain about droves of noisy visitors creating traffic jams, blocking driveways and sometimes trampling lawns.

“I am kind of tired of it,” said Wanda McGuire, who lives across the street from the Wilkinsons in La Mirada. “It’s 11 years of heavy traffic, rude people and cars that block my driveway.”

In Naples, the entire area swarms with traffic and pedestrians during the annual Christmas boat parade, residents said.

Henry Holloman, a theology instructor at Biola University, a Christian institution in La Mirada, said some holiday decorating is OK, but the grand displays may detract from the more important aspects of Christmas: giving to those in need and celebrating the life of Jesus.

“I see that as moving too much into the area of show and competition and think some of this money might be spent better on people who don’t have food and funds for other things,” Holloman said. “That would be keeping the tradition rather than flaunting status symbols before people.”

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The reasons people dress up their homes and neighborhoods are as varied as the decorations themselves.

“I do it because I would love to give everybody in the world a gift,” said Dorothy Ness. She and her husband, Ed, have converted their Norwalk home into a winter wonderland featuring twirling bears, a Santa’s workshop with mechanical elves making toys and toy soldiers. Above the home is a sign declaring: “Jesus is the reason for the season.”

“This is a way of giving everybody something from us,” she said.

Friendly rivalry fuels Ann and Mario Guerra’s display on Yankey Street in Downey. The couple’s lawn has been transformed into a miniature football field. A scoreboard shows the outcome of last month’s UCLA-USC clash, a 31-19 victory for the Bruins. Cutouts of reindeer and elves wearing UCLA’s blue-and-gold colors stand below a sign that boasts: “It’s a very Bruin Christmas.”

“I went to USC and my husband went to UCLA, so we put up the figures for the team that wins,” said Ann Guerra. “Unfortunately, UCLA won this year.”

There’s always next season. When the characters are turned around they sport Southern Cal’s gold and cardinal uniforms--and the sign offers a Trojan greeting.

The Guerras’ display is part of a long decorating tradition on Yankey Street. Scores of visitors walk the neighborhood each night and meet with homeowners, who proudly discuss their creations.

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Betty Sarell, who goes door-to-door to encourage neighbors to decorate their homes, said her inspiration is rooted in childhood visits to Downey at Christmastime.

“I grew up in Commerce, and we had seven kids and no money for decorations, so we would come to Downey,” Sarell said. “I always said one day I was going to have a home and live in a neighborhood like that.”

This year, carved wooden carolers stand on her lawn. A model elf is climbing a ladder to place the final strands of silver tinsel on a huge tree. A jack-in-the-box pops out near the front door while three chipmunks stacked on each other’s shoulders clutch a wreath wrapped in a string of lights.

Just down from Yankey Street on Sarabeth Street, Irma and Don Schibler have set up two slide projectors showing black-and-white images of the birth of Jesus on the garage. Mary and Joseph are seen caring for the baby Jesus in the manger as barn animals watch.

The Schiblers, who are recent arrivals, said they wanted to join in the holiday enthusiasm that grips the neighborhood. “We have never been in a place like this,” Irma Schibler said.

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Maria Norvell, who has been setting up the Wrigley Assn.’s display along Daisy Avenue in Long Beach for six years, said she is delighted to help preserve a tradition now in its fifth decade. “I just love it, and I do it for the children,” she said.

The median also is graced with other models, such as a cobbler shop, a police station and a blue chapel built in the late 1950s, probably the oldest decoration in the lot. Painted wooden snow characters--among them Butch, Holly and Engineer Bill--stand near the little houses.

But few can can top Tom and Chris Wilkinson’s extravagant layout in La Mirada. From the front lawn to the bathroom stocked with “ho-ho-ho” toilet paper and Santa Claus shower curtain, nearly every part of the house is dressed for Christmas.

Wilkinson, 52, immersed herself in decorating nine years ago after her 21-year-old son, Joe, was killed in a motorcycle accident shortly before Christmas. “I am so involved with this because it nurtures me,” she said.

The process begins in October when the Wilkinsons cover their home and lawn with white sheets to give the appearance of fallen snow. The weeks that follow are consumed by building, painting and testing in preparation for the house-lighting event early in December.

“I just become so obsessed with this house and Christmas,” Chris Wilkinson said.

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Tom Wilkinson, 56, an aerospace consultant who works from home, can be seen talking to clients on the phone while touching up a Nativity scene and testing lights. Volunteers and family members often drop by to help string lights and wrap trees in tinfoil and red bows.

“It’s fun to be able to do so much and see people’s reaction to it,” said Ruth Byers, a friend who used a day off from work to help.

Several years ago, awed visitors to the Wilkinson’s Christmas House offered to chip in money for the electric bill, which now runs about $500 a month during the holidays. “We decided to take the money and give it to somebody who could use it,” Chris Wilkinson said.

For the last eight years the Wilkinsons have given all donations to charity. Now, a volunteer dressed as Santa Claus is stationed in the garage every night to pose for photographs with those who donate $5. In 1993, the Wilkinsons collected about $5,000 for charity. This year, the donations will be given to the Adam Walsh Center in Orange, an organization that serves the families of missing and abused children.

“We don’t get a lot of people doing things for us because people don’t want to talk about child abuse,” said Peter M. Choquette, president of the center’s board of directors. “We are absolutely delighted that someone would do this for the center.”

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Holiday Displays in the Southeast Area

CERRITOS:

* Kings Row Avenue, between South Street and Andy Street. This block of decorations includes a topiary sculpture of a reindeer and a country-Western Christmas scene.

DOWNEY:

* Yankey Street, between Rives Avenue and Yankey Circle. Homes are drenched in flashing, sparkling decorations.

* 7615 Sarabeth St. (near Yankey Street). Black-and-white slide images of the Nativity are projected on the garage, and images of the Three Wise Men are displayed in the windows.

LONG BEACH:

* Naples, south of 2nd Street near North Ravenna Drive. A waterfront decorating tradition features lighted homes along many of the canals. One display with a Hawaiian theme has Santa Claus sporting a grass skirt.

* Daisy Avenue, between Hill Street and Pacific Coast Highway. Lighted median strip becomes Christmas Tree Lane flanked by small wooden houses, stores and snowmen. The display is in its 41st year.

LA MIRADA:

* 14371 Ramo Drive. This Christmas extravaganza, two months in the making, features dozens of lighted trees, miniature trains and Ferris wheels.

NORWALK:

* 14838 Pioneer Blvd. Mechanical elves craft toys in a glass-enclosed Santa’s workshop. Dozens of animated characters spin and twirl.

SANTA FE SPRINGS:

* Heritage Park, 12100 Mora Drive. Modest white lights cover the park’s trees and gardens, providing an intimate setting for a romantic stroll. Re-creations of Victorian-era buildings also are on display.