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Green and red? This year's holiday decor is decidedly more public-spirited.
By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 8, 2001
Red, white and blue has become the nation's new holiday color scheme.
The Christmas tree in New York City's Rockefeller Center is bathed in red, white and blue lights this year. Instead of metallic silver banners, the 81-foot Norway spruce is surrounded by dozens of American flags.
Around Tampa Bay, the enthusiasts who deck their halls, garages, rooflines, yards and shrubbery with lights each holiday season have embraced the idea as well.
"I had some friends and family involved with 9/11," said Carol Markle of 10051 Barnett Loop in Port Richey. They all survived: a girlfriend's son, a niece who was at the World Trade Center at the time of the terrorist attacks, friends in the military. "But I thought it was a good way to honor those less fortunate. My patriotic duty."
Her home and yard are a blaze of red, white and blue. A projector shines an image of the American flag on the garage door, "and we've got a big flag up." There are red, white and blue bows, lights and rope lights and small flags along the driveway and sidewalk.
She got most of her supplies at Wal-Mart "and we've had a lot of compliments. Everybody thinks it looks nice."
"Red, white and blue has been phenomenal this year," said Steve Broyles, owner of All American Christmas Co. in Sparta, Tenn., which makes decorative lighting mainly for the municipal and commercial markets. "People are wanting different flag designs too."
Many customers want to put something patriotic out that's lighted at night, Broyles said, when other decorations aren't visible unless they're spotlighted. "It's just a way for people to show more of their colors when they're brightest at night," he said.
At Inliten in Northfield, Ill., a longtime manufacturer of holiday lighting, "we've been doing a lot of rush orders for retailers doing patriotic sections in their stores," said Nick Bauer, vice president for product development.
At the Clearwater home of Jessica and Ted Martin, it was Ted, a reservations agent for Continental Airlines, who suggested to his wife, Jessica, who works for Danka: "This is the year we're going to go patriotic." She bought blue lights at Wal-Mart, then painstakingly removed "every third bulb" in their existing strands of red-and-white lights and replaced each one with a blue bulb.
"I sat there watching my soap operas, with the strands plugged in to make sure they worked," she said. "It was unbelievable. I told my husband, "The things I do for you!' "
Jessica put red, white and blue bows on the reindeer in the yard, Ted bought a mailbox in the appropriate colors, and there's a big sign that says, "God Bless America."
Says Jessica, who is nursing callused fingers: "Mind you, it took a total of about four weeks to do it, but it was worth it." The red, white and blue lights hang in icicles from the roofline, on the bushes and in a garland from the door, around the windows, to the garage. The Martins' home is at 301 Calais Lane in Clearwater.
Beyond red, white and blue, the images with which America decorates for the holidays are changing, manufacturers say. Santas, wreaths, and toy soldiers, which are linked specifically to Christmas, are yielding to snowflakes, snowmen and other more generic winter images.
"That allows them to use the decorations a little longer," Broyles explained. "They don't look out of place if you put them up a little earlier and keep them up later." A lot of communities have winter festivals independent of Christmas, he pointed out, and want decorations that will look appropriate. His headquarters is close to the Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge-Sevierville area that holds "a tremendous winterfest," he said. As many as 7-million lights go up in early November and stay lighted until the end of February.
The $60-million holiday lighting industry is a creature of technology, representatives say, and as subject to trends and fads as any other. Those icicle lights hanging from rooflines that were all the rage a couple of years ago "are now post-peak," Bauer said. They have been replaced by rope lighting, which has grown more sophisticated in the last couple of years.
Rope lighting consists of a plastic tube encasing a string of lights about an inch apart. The tube can be bent and twisted to create silhouettes like the grazing reindeer, Santa and Mrs. Claus, and other shapes that are on lawns everywhere this season.
"The industry is learning different ways to to use the product, to create effects without sacrificing the quality," Bauer said. That's why we're seeing "more sophisticated silhouettes" now than a few years ago, more delicate and more detailed. "Before, it was a brand-new technology. Now we're mastering how to twist it without breaking the wires or bulbs and creating more intricate shapes."
Perhaps because the annual hand-to-hand combat with a recalcitrant string of lights has become the stuff of comedy routines (and annual family fights), the movement toward trees already strung with lights is strong. Artificial trees look more realistic every year (they were the choice of 49 percent of American households last year); in addition to the desire to save time and avoid a struggle, consumers want a good-looking tree.
Those lights-included trees are not cheap, though, so some manufacturers are offering a warranty of as much as 10 years on the life of the lights, a way of reassuring customers that their investment will last.
Fiberoptic trees, with tiny embedded lights that twinkle and shine and may change color, are another big seller this year. That's one end of the technology spectrum. The other is "that rotating silver tree" from the 1960s, "that retro look," Steve Broyles said.
"That's hot too."
For a history of Christmas lights, information about using, replacing and repairing vintage lights, and a photo gallery of light sets of decades past (NOMA bubble lights, anyone?), visit www.oldchristmaslights.com.