What is it about the holidays that compels us to decorate our homes? What qualities drive someone to festoon their house with robotic characters and plastic candy canes and blinking displays as Christmas approaches – compounding one more obligatory undertaking to a holiday season that almost bursts with them?
In search of answers to these questions, I spent several nights trolling through Kalispell’s neighborhoods looking for the best and the brightest of the town’s holiday decorators to ask them why they did it. Whether it was a modest home or one of the oldest, grandest houses in the city, their answers were similar sentiments. Because there really is no logical reason to decorate one’s home so much – but in a way, that’s the point. The motivation stems from something indefinable yet persistent, a melding of religious conviction and community celebration that might be most accurately described as the holiday spirit.
And in these four homes it abounds.
HOUSE 1: West Nicklaus Avenue
At the corner of West Nicklaus Avenue and Ritzman Lane, the Schwartz home beckons: a glowing beacon of holiday cheer visible for blocks. Towering grinches, lights adorning huge trees, candy canes; the display surrounds three sides of the house.
“We’ve been doing this for 10 years,” Steve Schwartz said. “It grows a little bit each year.”
Three of those 10 years, Schwartz has won the Village Greens decorating contest, and the house is a contender every year. He estimates it takes him four full weekends to get the display up, and probably tacks on about $30 a month to the electric bill. It wouldn’t be possible at all had he not added several additional outlets to accommodate everything – and this year Schwartz didn’t even go all the way.
“I usually have three bigger trees,” he said. “Each of those trees had 25 strings of light.”
According to Steve and his wife, Kelsey, the decorations make visits from their grandkids especially memorable, and help get the family in the spirit.
“I just start putting things up, there’s no strategy,” he said. “Even if I got so I couldn’t do it, the kids would come over and help.”
But since expectations are so high, Kelsey frets that someone will notice the Charlie Brown display isn’t there this year either, then she notices something crooked.
“Stand the snowman up,” she said to Steve. “He’s kind of leaning over.”
HOUSE 2: 5th Avenue West
It is the Morgans’ first Christmas in Kalispell and they are making their presence known with a front yard visible from Flathead High School, a few blocks north. Their lawn has everything: spiral trees, signs, animals, wooden lollipops flanking the front gate, like the munchkin village from the “Wizard of Oz.” Ernest Morgan has always loved Christmas, he said, describing “the smells and lights and going into the malls.” He proposed to his wife Karen on Christmas Eve in 1971.
Ernest even works as a Santa Claus at Wal-Mart, for the same reason he puts up the lights: to bring joy to children.
“They run up and just jump right in your arms and give you the biggest, most heart-melting hug you could get from a child,” he said. “That’s why I do it.”
Karen also works at Wal-Mart. A job transfer is what brought them to Kalispell, and she loves coming back to the house after a busy day.
“I work retail, and after the hem and haw of people all day, to come home to this, it’s kind of serene,” she said. “Even if you don’t have a lot of money to buy gifts, you can still have peace.”
Inside, the Morgan home is just as decorated, with wooden elves climbing a staircase along the Christmas tree, carved and painted by Ernest. But out of all their decorations, Karen’s favorite is a battered golden angel with the halo nearly falling off. Ernest’s grandmother gave it to her shortly after they were married.
“It’s had its day but I won’t get rid of it,” Karen said. “I love it.”
The Morgans will be far from their grandkids in Utah this Christmas, so they are planning a quiet day at home. Asked why he decorated so much for the holidays, Ernest was noncommittal.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m crazy, I guess.”
HOUSE 3: 5th Avenue East
As a child, Nikki Sliter used to walk past the Agather House, one of Kalispell’s grand historic homes, and tell her mother she would live there someday. Now, married to Everit, whose family has lived there for three generations, she does.
And she takes advantage of the prominence of the house by adorning it every Christmas with lights, wreaths, a decorated tree on the front porch, stuffed bears wearing Griz caps, old ice skates and antique toboggans. A white tree inside a front room’s bay windows is also visible from the street.
“I have been blessed to have a lot of people tell me that they drive by,” Nikki said, “so you’re giving joy to people.”
Her decorations for Halloween are even more elaborate, with multiple flying demons. Then she takes down the scary stuff and begins stringing up the lights for the upcoming holidays, a season she dubs “Hallow-Thanks-Mas.” After Christmas, she leaves the wreathes up and puts hearts in them for Valentine’s Day.
“Some days, when I’m standing out there on the roof, I get to thinking I’m nuts,” she said. “And if you knew me, you’d know that’s true.”
Nikki is also active in the holiday festivities and decorations of the Conrad Mansion a few blocks away, and admits readily that she will decorate just about anything standing still.
“It’s just all about joy; I kind of like to live my life that way,” she added. “If it truly felt like an obligation, I wouldn’t do it.”
HOUSE 4: Crestview Road
Brad Walterskirchen admits he puts up a lot of decorations, but it’s nothing compared to the spectacle that once stood on his home site. The Walterskirchens used to live one lot over, and their neighbor, Lou Bain, who then owned the lot where their current house now stands near the corner of Sherwood lane, would construct a complex of Christmas lights and decorations that would draw families and children from all over the Flathead.
Animated Disney characters, ninja turtles, a candy-cane walkway, a ferris wheel with animals riding it: Brad recalled Bain began erecting the display in August, working up until Christmas. The lights were so bright, Brad said, “we had to put foil on the kids’ bedroom windows because they couldn’t go to sleep at night.”
“I really didn’t do much with my house because it was embarrassing,” Brad said, who simply put an illuminated arrow up on his basketball hoop one year pointing to Bain’s display. When the Walterskirchens bought the lot, it was a relief for Bain, who was getting on in years and having a harder time spending hours in the cold, fixing light bulbs.
“Lou came and thanked me because it got him out of things gracefully,” Brad said.
Bain passed away several years ago, but Brad calls the elaborate decorations he puts up now, “a salute to our good friend, Lou.”
Ron Bain, who with his siblings helped build the display every year, said his father gave all his decorations to the city of Columbia Falls when he stopped using them.
“I’ve never seen anything like that, before or since, because nobody’s that crazy,” Bain said, and attributed his father’s desire to make such a massive display to his affection for children – a commonality among everyone interviewed for this story who toils inexplicably every year on their Christmas lights.
“He just really liked the wonderment on kids’ faces,” Ron Bain said. “He had a lot of love for the kids to put that up, and to keep at it.”