Number 24, which sparkles and dazzles in a blur bright white lights, has one of the most unique decorations on the block: a flat abstracted version of a Christmas tree that looks like a Modernist art piece. Kormann made it last year by cutting a piece of pegboard into the shape of a triangle, painting it green, and pushing 602 lights into the board from the back. He buys most of his supplies locally and also trades back and forth with Campbell (“the mastermind”). “I always feel Kingston goes beyond and above,” Kormann said.
Each year, on the second Thursday of December, the street is shut down for a Christmas parade put on by Campbell (who launched the event 20 years ago on his driveway) and other residents. The parade ends with a festive gathering on the lawn of Number 36, directly across the street from the Campbells. This year, approximately 200 people attended, including dozens of kids who delighted in the live Santa and Frosty the Snowman costumed characters.
Marion Jones, the owner of Number 36, recruits her granddaughter, sisters and other volunteers to serve the coffee and hot chocolate that’s prepared in her kitchen by her son. This year, “we served almost 500 cups of hot chocolate,” Jones said, noting that a port-a-potty, donated by the company, is installed for the event. Volunteers bring cookies by the dozens. “I love it. This year my nephew came and did a livestream video on Facebook, then stood by the carport and took beautiful pictures of kids with Santa Claus. The whole neighborhood gets involved,” she said.
There’s also a toy drive and donated food baskets; Jones said this year $700 was raised and two big bags of toys accumulated. “I had the chore of wrapping them all. There wasn’t room to move in my house for a few days.”
Jones’ late husband made the large kissing figures of Santa and Mrs. Santa positioned in the carport, which are illuminated as if they were on a stage. Her side yard features a nativity of white figures, obtained online, as were the large white “Joy” and “Peace” letters positioned prominently on her front yard and in her front window. She said a display of four reindeer and a sled with cascading lights that her husband made had been donated to a friend of Campbell’s who lives in Esopus, after one of her sons moved down south and it was too much for her to install. “When the man put it up the first year and took his autistic son to see it, the son spoke his first words,” she said.
“A lot of us do this because of the joy it brings people,” said Campbell. “I’m not materialistic. It’s not what’s under the tree that makes my Christmas, it’s the kids running around to make the motion-detected bells go off in my yard. We get buses of senior citizens, and a couple of Children’s Homes take their clients out to see the lights.” People are constantly stopping in their cars to admire the displays, often knocking on the door for permission to take a picture.
Added Kormann, “We try to encourage everyone to put lights up. We’d like to get the whole street lit up.” A motivator is that Abbey Street — the next block over — “is trying to compete with us.”
But Jones, who has lived at Number 36 since 1971 and will be 81 in a couple of months, worries how much longer she and neighbors, who are elderly, can continue. Her son, who spends three to four weeks putting up the display, is having health problems, and powering the lights, which this year are a combination of red and white, is expensive: last year her electric bill for November and December was $1,400.
However, pride in Santa Claus Lane, and concerns that Abbey Street, which has “newer, younger people,” is gaining ground, keep her going. “The mayor used to tell us, ‘we put the rest of the city to shame,’” she said. “Every year, people say to me, ‘I thought you weren’t doing it this year,’ but as long as my son can go out there and hook up the lights, we’re doing it.”
Added Campbell: “I’m 55, and I’ll be doing this until I can’t do this anymore.”
All season this is