Lighting up the street
Neighborhood showcases abundance of holiday lights
A coordinated neighborhood effort in west Yuba City brings an abundance of Christmas lights that will glow each night for the next few weeks.
El Margarita Estates, a small neighborhood off El Margarita Road between Toyon and Imperial ways in Yuba City, is an especially bright spot amid the dark and cold winter nights.
“We sit in our house with the window cracked and you can hear all the kids say, ‘look, it’s Santa’ as they come by and you know that it’s real to them,” said Ben Martin, a nine-year
resident of the neighborhood. “I talk to all the neighbors around here and they just want to see people happy.”
Martin’s yard, like almost every other home, is filled with a combination of lights and decorations and each year, things change a bit.
“Next year, we’re going for a Snoopy theme so it’s going to change,” he said. “We’ll get the ‘Peanuts’ characters and make sure they’re all dressed up for Christmas.”
Jaime Miller and her family are new additions to the neighborhood and jumped into the Christmas spirit immediately upon arrival.
“We moved into the neighborhood the second week of November and every weekend since then, we’ve been putting up lights and Christmas decorations,” Miller said. “Christmas is one of my favorite holidays because it’s really pretty and when people drive though this neighborhood, it helps them get out of a funk that can come with the holidays.” Miller and her husband, Quinn, live in the area with their two young children (a third adult child is living elsewhere) and she has fond memories of seeing the lights when she was younger.
“Ever since they’ve been doing this, my parents always had friends who lived in the neighborhood and we’d frequent the area to go see the lights,” she said. “We’re feeling very blessed this year.”
She said they’ll often walk around their new neighborhood in the evenings to visit with people coming to see the lights.
“I’m the newbie on the block but every person in the neighborhood is very welcoming and when people move to this area, they stay,” she said. “Every single person has pretty decorations and a lot of people let you take pics of their props.”
The Miller home has a Santa’s Workshop theme and she said another house has an abundance of characters from the film “Frozen.”
Meschelle and Jonathan Hindo of Marysville brought their 1-year-old daughter, Zoe, to the neighborhood to see the lights.
“That’s the house we’re looking for,” Meschelle Hindo said. “Every year, they decorate it like the movie ‘Elf.’”
Judy Klamerous moved to the area in 1999 and said the area was filled with lights during Christmas when she arrived but didn’t know how long ago the tradition started.
“Christmas is my favorite time of the year,” she said. “My grandson and his wife live across the street and my daughter and son-in-law live down the street.”