At Desert Shop, It Always Looks a Lot Like Christmas

The thermometer was pushing 100, but that didn’t stop shoppers from visiting the Treasure Chest Christmas Store at the edge of the Mojave Desert. Undeterred by the fact that Christmas is six months away and lured by the billboards along Interstate 10, a steady stream of customers came in to take a break from the heat over the weekend and wander amid the Styrofoam snowmen, icicle ornaments, Santa candles, twinkling lights and imitation trees with tufts of cottony snow in their branches.

“It’s just like Disneyland,” Veronica Campobasso, 30, said when she walked through the door with her mother and two children Saturday afternoon. A resident of Hemet, Campobasso visits the store about once a year: “Any time that’s not Christmastime, just to get in the mood. We like the spirit of this place.”

Campobasso is one of thousands of customers who can’t seem to go 12 months without indulging their appetite for all things Christmas and who have kept this winter wonderland in business for more than 23 years. Located southeast of Redlands, in a nearly vacant strip mall between a pizzeria and beauty supply store, the shop is owned by Tim Summerhays, 52, and his mother, who initially opened it as a craft store. That lasted about six years until son Tim, a former Las Vegas costumer, came to visit and decorated the store one holiday season.

“We used to do the whole front all Christmas-y, and people would just be grabbing things off the tree to buy. . . . It just evolved from there and kind of got out of hand,” said Summerhays, who later moved to Calimesa to help his mother run the store. Dressed in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, he keeps the store a temperate 72 degrees--significantly warmer than the North Pole but cooler than the surrounding desert.

Summerhays’ flair and sense of whimsy inform the store’s decor--from the elaborate Christmas villages he’s constructed to the cutout snowflakes he has dangling from the ceiling and, most notably, the enormous purple octopus he sewed himself and draped atop an imitation juniper, its arms curling through branches loaded with fish ornaments.

The store’s theme extends even to Nicholas, the resident cocker spaniel, who wears a red collar. (The 3-year-old puppy had been St. Nicholas until he hit his terrible 2s and Summerhays stripped him of his sainthood.)

The Christmas theme goes only so far, though. Summerhays plays seasonal music in the store “only” from September through Christmas.

“It’s just like water torture,” he said.

Linda Custer is the kind of Christmas fanatic that makes such a store possible year-round. She and her husband have been to similar shops in Florida and Maine.

According to Jonathan Custer, 48, the couple has enough decorations for two houses, but that didn’t prevent them from stopping at the Treasure Chest Christmas Store after spotting the shop’s billboard on a drive through the desert after visiting the Renaissance Faire in San Bernardino.

“Whenever we see a Christmas store, we go,” said Linda, 49, of San Diego. “Christmas is my favorite time of year. It’s happy, fun and magical.”

B.J. Culler, 62, and Wes Sewell, 60, of Live Oak Canyon in Orange County, enjoy the winter holiday season, but that wasn’t the reason for their visit to the Christmas Store over the weekend. They went to buy a couple of strings of white lights for their wedding in July. They are “extremely hard to find” in the off-season, said a well-tanned Sewell.

Elaine Wessel, a respiratory therapist from San Bernardino, shops at the Christmas Store “about once a month to see what’s new.” In the five years she has been a customer, she has purchased reindeer serving bowls, angel candleholders, Santa Claus figurines and numerous ornaments as gifts for friends, and decorations for her home. On Saturday, she found a nativity-scene lapel pin she plans to wear come December.

Like many of the shop’s regulars, she enjoys celebrating Christmas but wants to avoid the seasonal crowds.

Wessel, 37, likes to have all her holiday shopping finished by September.

“I don’t go shopping at Christmastime because it’s too stressful. I enjoy it now because I can look at things. I can think about them. I’m not being crowded, and I’m not being pressured.”

Over the summer, business at the Christmas Store slowly but steadily builds until September, when the season kicks into high gear. By December, customers jam the place, according to Summerhays.

“Sometimes when we’re really busy, I think, ‘Why are all these people here out in the middle of nowhere?’ It’s hard to believe.”

The Christmas store is open year-round, seven days a week, but is closed on major holidays, including Christmas.

“Some people think we should be open on Christmas Day,” Summerhays said. “Give me a break.”

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Susan Carpenter can be reached at susan.carpenter@latimes.com.