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Spectacle of holiday lights takes a star turn on HGTV

Producers visit the Kresge Christmas creation to film a show about decorators gone wild.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published November 9, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - The TV channel that offers decorating advice to avid fans around the country turned to St. Petersburg this week for an example of what people will do to create "the wildest, most outrageous" displays for Christmas.

The so-called Christmas House at 2719 Oakdale St. S fits all their superlatives. Neighbors and Tampa Bay residents for miles around would recognize the address. It's the house of Ted and Kim Kresge, whose spectacle of lights, gingerbread men, snowmen, creches, animated figures, model trains and all things Christmassy have beckoned gawkers for more than a quarter of a century.

On Tuesday morning, TV cameras descended on the house, the only Florida residence chosen for the hourlong All Out Christmas special. The filming would offer neighbors a preview of this year's display, said Michele Loschiavo, a producer for Nancy Glass Productions, which is responsible for such HGTV shows as Mission Organization and Kitchen Trends. She and two crew members planned to be at the Kresge house late into the night to film what would be one of 12 four-minute segments of homes throughout the nation.

Ted Kresge stayed up all night Monday preparing his half-acre property for the cameras.

"It's much easier to do some of the stuff at nighttime," he explained.

Normally the Kresges and an army of elves begin decorating Sept. 1. This year work started earlier to accommodate changes to the display, said Kresge, 65.

"We've gone to a lot of computerization. It's kind of the latest thing in displays. We have a huge tree on the roof, about 70 feet high and with 7,600 lights. It's computerized with 18 different light patterns," he said.

When HGTV called at the end of September, the decorating flurry took on some urgency. But being a media curiosity is nothing new to the Kresges, whose handiwork has been featured in People magazine and has sometimes raised the ire of neighbors fed up with the throngs it attracts.

The St. Petersburg Christmas House was more impressive than in pictures, Loschiavo said.

"It's amazing the amount of time, of work and talent that has gone into this. And the patience," she said.

Kresge and his wife, who spend much of the year as missionaries overseas, started the display in 1977.

"It was just like any display. We just started off with a few strings of lights. By 1979, we had 6,000 lights and then we started noticing that people were coming," said Kresge, a retired self-defense teacher and former owner of about a dozen karate schools.

This year, the Christmas House and its property will be awash in 609,000 lights. About half the lights are gifts from supporters. So are many of the decorations: dozens of stuffed animals, dolls in red and green velvet and satin, polar bears, an alligator and a giant snow globe.

The Kresges' Web site, christmasdisplay.org, describes their annual effort as "one of the largest residential light displays in the country." They say it takes about 15 people nearly three months to install the roughly 12 truckloads of decorations.

Kresge, who made news several years ago when he predicted the end of the world, also has a signpost that stays up year-round warning against certain faiths and practices, including yoga, astrology and spiritualism. He wants his display to remind people of the true meaning of Christmas, he said.

"The birth of Jesus, that's what Christmas represents," he said. "It is a celebration of Jesus and Christmas, and that is the message we're trying to put out there."

One of the rewards of creating the display is watching the faces of children who visit, he said.

"We've got second, third generations coming now. Some of them started coming way in the early years."

The Kresge Christmas House on HGTV's All Out Christmas, 9 p.m. Dec. 18, 8 p.m. Dec. 21, 9 p.m. Dec. 24, and 9 a.m. Dec. 25.

[Last modified November 9, 2005, 00:39:17]