A star is born
The star lighting ceremony is one of the most iconic parts of Homewood’s Christmas celebration. But Carl Russell of the city’s fleet management department gets more satisfaction out of seeing it shine in his department garage rather than over 18th Street.
“I think turning the lights on here is my favorite part because it’s dark in here, and you turn the lights on and see it all working, and working perfectly. You’re like, ‘Wow, done it again,’” Russell said.
Russell has worked with fleet management for 13 years, but for one week each November, he devotes his time almost completely to wrapping Homewood’s 20-foot-wide star in garlands and around 1,200 lights. It’s a job he enjoys and has done nearly every Christmas since he began working for the city.
“They liked the way I put it together, I guess, [or] they just didn’t want to do it, so I was stuck with it,” Russell laughed.
“Carl does a great job,” said fleet management head Gordon Jaynes. “When you find somebody that does a good job, you continue letting them do it.”
He’s one of about a dozen city employees who devote their time each year to getting Homewood ready for the holidays, said traffic department head Randy Hambley. In addition to the star, there’s also the City Hall Christmas tree, 32 light-up pole decorations and hundreds of feet of bows, garlands and wreaths to be strung around the city. Hambley said the city also helps Edgewood’s businesses put up their tree.
All of that takes a team from fleet management, traffic, parks and recreation and public works to assemble each year. They begin in mid-October, pulling décor from storage and testing multicolored lights, and the decoration wraps up around the week after Thanksgiving with the hanging of the star and the placement of the City Hall Christmas tree.
“We kind of have to get a jump-start on that because there’s so much of it,” Hambley said.
That team includes city employees Steven Peoples and Jordan Hicks, who have helped hang decorations for about five years. Most of the year, their job includes landscaping and mowing across Homewood, but for a few weeks in November they trade lawnmowers for ladders to hang garlands from one end of the city to the other.
“It’s when we all get together, you know, we have fun doing the hanging and just enjoying doing what we do,” Peoples said.
Hambley has worked with Homewood for 23 years. When he started, the city only hung the star, a few garlands and strands of lights in the trees on 18th Street.
The city has added to that significantly, including the tree roughly a decade ago and the pole decorations about eight years ago. Every year, Hambley said they try to bring in a few more decorations to light up new parts of the city.
“In the 23 years, we’ve added a pretty good bit,” Hambley said.
The star tradition dates back more than 50 years, Hambley said, though this is the sixth year that the Homewood Chamber of Commerce has hosted the star lighting ceremony.
This year, Mayor Scott McBrayer will light the star Dec. 6 at 6:30 p.m. to signal the start of the annual Christmas Parade.
However, Homewood’s star looks a little different than it did in its early years.
Chris Chesnut, a fleet management employee, said when he started working for the city 26 years ago, the Homewood star had ceramic fixtures to screw in lightbulbs. It was heavy and sagged slightly over the street, and Chesnut said it once got hit by a passing vehicle.
About 20 years ago, Chesnut was called upon to build a new star for the city. It’s still in use and can be completely taken apart. Chesnut said it took him about a month to build the star, which weighs about 200 pounds when fully decorated.
Both the star’s size and its historic importance means it gets a little VIP treatment. After Russell finishes decoration, the star has to be transported from the fleet management garage on Bagby Drive to its place of honor on 18th Street.
“That morning, they’ve got a big dump truck, and they take the star, and they actually lay it on the bed of the dump truck. … The police department will escort us over there because it hangs out so far, it takes up more than a lane of traffic. So we have to be careful. They usually have two people who ride in the back of the truck, you know, so if they do come up to something that looks like it’s going to hit, they can slide it to one side or the other,” Hambley said. “It’s a little bit of a challenge getting it over there.”
Seeing all the decorations come together is as enjoyable for the city employees as it is for Homewood residents.
“Everybody loves it,” Hambley said. “When we start putting the Christmas decorations and all basically down 18th Street, a lot of the people shopping down there usually comment on everything.”
And as Russell pulls out the boxes of lights and garlands each year, he said he feels a special weight of responsibility.
“I have to put a lot of effort into it because it means a lot to so many people. So I take my time, make sure it’s right because they’re counting on me,” Russell said.