HALLS HAVE BEEN DECKED EARLIER THAN USUAL IN 2020

Colorado holiday decorations going up earlier, and in greater numbers, in 2020

On a hill above Gypsum Creek Golf Course in the Vail Valley, Greg Bloom has watched with glee as holiday lights blink to life this week. “I can see almost every house in Gypsum from up here,” Bloom said by phone. “Some neighbors have their lights on already, and I can see other folks hanging them up and testing. But not everybody is going, ‘( Screw) it,

I’m putting them on early!’ ”

You can count Bloom, 48, among the early adopters. Starting Tuesday, he’s been turning on his exterior holiday lights — 25 different strands across his house and seven trees — every night. He doesn’t care that he’s jumping the gun on the traditional, post- Thanksgiving weekend starting line, when most other residential decorators join the race.

“I don’t have the tricked- out manger or snowman playing guitar. I just wanted to knock it out on a weekend when it wasn’t blizzarding,” said Bloom, the sponsorship sales director for the Vail Valley Foundation — which is hosting its own, 500,000light display (“Magic of Lights”) for the next six weeks in Vail Village.

“I just bought this house this year,”

he added. “I thought, ‘ Why the hell would you wait any longer? Everybody needs the cheer now.’ ”

That’s as true in Vail, where the annual Go Pro Mountain Games and World Cup ski races have been canceled due to coronavirus orders, as it is in the “Nutcracker”- free suburbs of metro Denver. As early as the first week of November — and co- mingling with rotting jack- o’- lanterns and festive scarecrows — a tangle of holiday lights began creeping onto gables, balconies and bay windows across Colorado.

This year, nobody’s waiting for a ( slightly early) dose of light and happiness, say home decorators who are spending more time and money than ever to blow out their interiors and exteriors with tinsel, LEDs and inflatable characters.

“We started with Halloween and transitioned our props to Christmas at the beginning of this month,” said Russ Shaver, 44, who lives at 3070 Hudson St. in Park Hill. “We were almost done until last weekend’s wind event. We are having to go back and redo almost everything that we have done.”

It’s no small task, given that Shaver — who won last year’s Denver Post holiday lights contest — spends hours synchronizing his house’s 100,000 or so lights to “dance” to nightly music, as many modern, over- the- top displays do.

“As far as the outside is concerned, the HOA plays a role in when to decorate more than anything else,” said Joshua Viola, who lives in a custom- built house in Westminster’s Huntington Trails, just west of Interstate 70. “I’m probably breaking the rules by putting my stuff out early.”

Viola dragged his boxes of new and nostalgic decorations out weeks ago, he said. Inside and out, his 9,500- square- foot home projects a cool, con-temporary-Southwest aesthetic with reclaimed chunks of driftwood and a mix of red and blue lighting that casts reflections on the silvery accents. ( Full disclosure: Viola is a Colorado publisher who has asked me to contribute a short epilogue to a forthcoming anthology of horror writers.)

For the fifth year in a row, Toby Gedek is running a lighting display at his home at 21580 Orleans Circle in Commerce City, with contests, prizes and charity fundraising. He, too, decided to jump into the game earlier than ever.

“Just because of all the craziness, we needed some kind of extra happiness around here,” said Gedek, 27, who this week topped off his exterior display with a 15- foot star. “Normally I wait until the third week of November, but I had the first section turned on by Nov. 8 this year. My neighbors were happy to see it up early.”

Gedek won’t say how many lights he has hung, since it’s part of his contest. ( People who guess the correct amount could win a new iPad or cash.) He’s also directing donations for this year’s fundraiser, via a QR code and URL on a sign in his front yard, to homeless veterans; visit bit. ly/ 3kJ1yvJ to learn more and donate on Facebook.

“One of the guesses is ‘ How many extension cords am I using?’ ” Gedek said.

Kyria Lydia, who lives in an apartment complex in Englewood, has watched with amazement the last couple of years as houses across the street from her balcony have burst to life with hundreds of thousands of lights on Belleview Avenue and elsewhere. It’s a good- natured, neighborly competition that has engulfed nearly the entire block, she said, echoing similar streets where neighbors all pitch in ( see Boulder’s Cloverleaf Drive).

“I come from Harlem and Queens, so it’s really nice to see,” said Lydia, 46. “I’m like, ‘ Oh, look at how wonderfully suburban this is!’ It’s an act of altruism or charity to decorate your house like that. Whatever people say about keeping up with the Joneses and all those little suburban things, they’re bringing a lot of joy to people — even if you’re making fun of how overthetop it is.”

Lydia is not. This week she took a walk with her husband and talked to some of the homeowners, including Robert Jones and Joanne Wood, at 5080 S. Elati St., who plan to offer 3- D glasses and hot cocoa to socially distanced outdoor visitors for their residential display.

As impressive as it already is, “we still have quite a bit of work to do,” Wood said via email. This week along her street, people in mechanical cherrypicker buckets could be glimpsed adding LED lights to trees.

Even if you plan to stay inside for most of this holiday season, self- guided driving tours should be better and more plentiful than ever, home decorators say. Regardless, holi-daydecorating comments on social media platforms — normally cauldrons of Grinchiness — have been unusually kind to 2020’ s early adopters.

“Judge me,” dared Brad Reubenville, after posting a shot of his interior holiday decorations on Nov.

16. “I welcome it.”

Fortunately, all of the 50 or so comments on that Facebook post shared similar sentiments ( and images).

“I even waited a week to post that, because it had been up for a few days already,” said Ruebenville, executive director of Denver’s S. A. M. E. Cafe, over the phone this week. “In the past, I was always the one saying ‘ I can’t believe they’re putting up Christmas decorations in October and selling them at stores!’ This year, not so much. I even got a sweater for the dog, and some holiday candles so I can smell that nonsense.”

Photos provided by Kyria Lydia Provided by Joshua Viola Top left: Robert Jones adjusts lighted reindeer decorations outside his home at 5080 S. Elati St. in Englewood. Top right: Joanne Wood dons 3- D glasses outside her home at 5080 S. Elati St. Bottom left: Some of the decorations at 5080 S. Elati St. Bottom right: Joshua Viola decorated his custom- built, Westminster home with cool, contemporary touches for 2020.

Provided by Joe Stricker Stricker’s Winter Wonderland, at 6636 S. Lafayette St. in Centennial, took more than 100 hours over 14 days to set up, homeowner Joe Stricker wrote on Facebook.

Provided by Toby Gedek Toby Gedek’s holiday lights display, which includes various contests and a charity partner, went up early this year at 21580 Orleans Circle in Commerce City.

Provided by Greg Bloom Greg Bloom decorated his house above Gypsum early this year, and he's seen neighbors doing the same before Thanksgiving.

Provided by Russ Shaver Russ Shaver, whose home at 3070 Hudson St. in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood won last year’s Denver Post holiday lights contest, sets up early for 2020.

Provided by Joshua Viola Joshua Viola said he doesn’t care that his early holiday- decorating activities ran afoul of his Huntington Trails neighborhood’s HOA.