Lighting the sky with Christmas cheer

    Nightfall descends upon Washington to reveal a city illuminated by streets lights and, recently, Christmas lights. Pam and Steve Carter are among those who contribute to the city?s colorful night-time glow. The Carters live in the 1000 block of North Sixth Avenue, and have decorated their house inside and out for many years.

    The Carters string lights in their home and in their windows which are easily visible from the road. They decorate their front door and fence with garland, and set up a nativity scene in their front yard. The original nativity set came with a plastic manger. Steve thought it wasn?t sturdy enough so he built a manger out of wood.

    ?It only took me about an hour,? he said.

    Pam remarked that they used to have even more decorations in their yard when they had a few more trees.

    ?We used to have a great big pine out front, and we used to decorate that one, but it got too big that we had to cut it down,? she said. ?We don?t have the spruce anymore. People used to like that. We haven?t been able to decorate that for five years because it?s been too big to get up.?

    The inside of their home doesn?t lack for Christmas cheer either.

    ?We put Christmas trees in almost every room,? said Pam. ?We use garlands, Christmas angels, Santas and snowmen.?

    The Carters try to put up their decorations around Thanksgiving. Pam said it takes her and her husband about a week to put up all the interior and exterior ornaments.

    ?It depends on the weather,? she said. ?If the weather is bad, you can?t go outside to put stuff up.?

    Betty and Allen Fuhr live next door to the Carters and they, too, spend copious amounts of time on their Christmas decorations. The couple have divided the labor such that Allen is in charge of the outdoor ornamentation while Betty takes care of the indoor trappings. Over many years, Betty has acquired 100 decorative snowmen, all of which are on display at the Fuhr home in December. Betty said it takes a whole day just to place the snowmen around the house.

    ?When the snowmen aren?t up, I have other antiques on display, so I have to take those down,? said Betty. ?Then I have to get all the plastic tubs with the snowmen. I have to get all the snowmen out of the tubs, and put the antiques in the tubs.?

For more, see our Dec. 22 print edition.