Photo by Madoline Markham.
1213 Dunn Family Christmas Light Display
Linlee Dunn, right, changes the numbers on the inflatable Santa Christmas countdown in her family’s yard every morning, starting about 80 days prior to the big holiday. She and her dad, Casey, left, put up around 40 inflatables in front of their Edgewood home each holiday season.
Around 10 p.m. on a December night, Marty Dunn heard a noise outside her bedroom window. Tourists clad in Christmas sweaters were streaming out of two tour buses and walking through the Christmas light “trail” in her front yard.
The Wacky Tacky Christmas Light Tour had arrived at 115 Hawthorne Road.
After a short online investigation into the tour, Marty’s husband, Casey, the mastermind behind the holiday display, found that their house had been dubbed “Santa’s Trailer Park.”
The name conjured up a single reaction in him: pride. There wasn’t even a hint of embarrassment, he said. After all, he had cultivated the more than 30 inflatables on display.
Starting around Thanksgiving, the lights at the Dunn house are on from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, and Christmas Eve they stay on all night.
Casey and his decorating partner in crime, daughter Linlee, 8, are ever eager to make their first Lowe’s trip of the season to look for the latest holiday inflatables. This year alone they are adding Santa in a bathtub, Santa in a deer stand, Santa hanging on the gutter and Santa in a hippie van, along with a Tacky Sweater Party sign Linlee gave her dad for Christmas last year. Those will join Santa in the outhouse, Santa in the hot air balloon, Santa with Mrs. Claus in a swing and an assortment of others in the collection.
Then there’s the laser Christmas lights Casey saw on QVC late one night that were advertised as “Disney technology made affordable.” They are also making their debut.
“We have yet to start taking things away,” Marty said.
The front yard show started with a different tone, one Marty will assure you was more classy.
Casey was playing baseball in the Royals’ minor league when they first married and were living on Dixon Avenue. He was at home a lot during the off-season, so he used his free time to hand-make wooden Christmas decorations for their yard.
The only original decoration that remains is a wooden snowman. These days inflatables rule the show.
A decade ago the couple moved to Hawthorne across from All Saints Episcopal Church, and Casey started working as the head baseball coach at Samford University. He had less time to make decorations, and inflatable holiday décor was new to the market.
Before Marty knew it, all her hopes of white lights and garland were forever gone. These days she doesn’t even see much need to decorate the inside of her house beyond stockings and a few other items.
The three-day process of installing the display starts around Thanksgiving, per Marty’s regulations. If Linlee had her way, it would start much earlier. Casey usually recruits some of the baseball players he coaches at Samford to help pull the goods out of the “Christmas explosion,” as Marty calls it, in their basement. Sometimes the students bring their girlfriends by later to tour the yard, Casey said.
Seven years ago Casey installed additional electrical breakers at the house, and four years ago they switched to LED lights.
“That helped with the power bill,” Marty said, as Casey described how previously they could hear the electric meter spinning when the lights were on.
Now they also have a remote control that can turn on all the lights at once.
Perhaps the most exciting day of the season for Casey is Dec. 26.
He’s up hours before Marty to start taking down the decorations, but the best part comes after Lowe’s and Home Depot open. He makes his rounds to about eight stores to gather up whatever he can find that is on sale.
Marty said she doesn’t even ask how much he spends afterward, but whatever he adds to his collection, she knows she will see it in their yard in 11 months.
“We tell people we live in the ‘Christmas Light House,’ and they know where we live,” Marty said.
