Light touch

Maybe you’re laboring under the illusion that holiday lighting involves heaving a string of lights over a shrub. Or maybe your idea of a festive display is taping a red light on the nose of your plastic pink lawn flamingo.

Well, here are two couples you should meet.

Michael and Sabrina Greene’s suburban home has long been a must-stop on the Spokane Valley portion of local holiday lights tours. Curt and Rene Miller’s home on Spokane’s North Side has been entertaining gawkers by the busload for nearly 13 years.

So we chose them to walk us through their holiday light displays in order to answer two questions: How do they do it? And why do they do it?

The answer to the latter is straightforward: It makes people happy.

“I do it for everyone,” said Greene, whose house also serves as a licensed adult and family care facility. “The kids and everyone who drives by. Of course, I’ve always liked Christmas lights, too.”

The Millers call it their “community service to the people.”

“One of the first years we had our light display up, we got a thank-you call from somebody who had driven past the house,” said Curt Miller, a retired state trooper.

“She said thank you for putting the lights up, because she couldn’t afford to do much for her children. But she drove them past our house three of four times. It kind of touched our heart, and we said, ‘We need to do this big-time.’”

Big time is right. The Millers now have 100 different ceramic, plush and fiber-optically lighted “snow people” and a working electric train – and that’s just in the front window. The outside has 53 figurines and lights covering nearly every surface.

The Greenes have a little over 30,000 lights, including a lighted archway over their driveway.

Here’s a guided tour of each display:

Michael and Sabrina Greene, 12727 E. 33rd Court, Spokane Valley: The first thing you notice is the glow, emanating from their cul de sac just east of the new University High School. The glow this year is bigger than ever.

“We have 12,000 more lights than last year,” said Greene.

The Greenes also have something on the order of 24 yard figurines, extensive perimeter lighting, a lighted arch over the driveway from 1½ inch PVC pipe (an idea he borrowed from another legendary Spokane Valley neighborhood on Keller Road) and two giant stars on the roof.

Advice No. 1: Be careful on the roof.

“I’ve fallen off the roof a couple of times,” he said. “Fortunately, there was snow to cushion the fall.”

Advice No. 2: Bunch the lights for maximum effect. Each of his trees has 3,000 miniature lights apiece on them.

“You can never have too many on a tree or bush in my opinion,” said Michael.

He also said it’s a good idea to begin with some kind of an overall theme. He settled on a candy-cane colored theme of red and white: Red C7 lights (nightlight sized bulbs) tracing the roof and window lines, with white icicle lights hanging beneath.

“There’s not an eave or a window that does not have lighting on it, on all four sides of the house,” said Greene, whose cul de sac home can be seen from all directions.

Every white post has been turned into a candy cane with the use of red and white rope-lights. Green highlights are scattered throughout the yard, on bushes and tree trunks.

The entire operation pulls 18,000 watts of power, or the equivalent of about 180 100-watt light bulbs. He figures it costs him about $5 a night.

“The most complicated thing is the distribution of power,” said Greene, who describes himself superfluously as “kind of a handyman.” “I have a whole diagram of the electrical distribution.”

He installed eight extra dedicated 20-amp circuits to handle the load.

“And this is the best part,” he said, grabbing a remote control and hitting a button.

Every light, all 30,000, come on at once. The entire system is automated through his computer.

Organization is the key in other ways, too. He has 2,000 feet of 12-gauge extension cords, all neatly sorted by length. Every string of lights is numbered and dated and stored away in a labeled container.

He also couldn’t do it without a good dependable light bulb tester.

The inside of the house has a Christmas theme, too, but lower tech. He and Sabrina collect Christmas teddy bears. They have 100 of them, to the delight of their four little boys.

The interior is not for public consumption, but the Greenes love it when people drive by the cul de sac to admire their exterior handiwork. In fact, he has a bit of advice for lookers: Drive past the cul de sac and look at it from a distance. That way, you get the full effect.

By the way, the Greenes still consider the display a work in progress.

“I’ve got a lot more yard I’d like to fill up eventually,” said Greene.

To get to the house, turn south off E. 32nd Avenue onto Woodlawn and then turn immediately right on South Vercler. As the Wise Men might have said, follow the star.

Curt and Rene Miller, 7020 N. Calispel St. – The best way to describe the Millers’ place would be “mini-Christmas-theme-park.”

Besides the thousands of lights covering the house and yard, the Millers also have 53 lighted figurines, a miniature chapel, a miniature ginger bread house, a lighted train, an inflatable penguin, a Santa’s sleigh on the roof, candy canes, lollipops and a walkway lined with posts.

Not to mention a front window display with a tree, a running train set and dozens of “snow people.”

No wonder a steady stream of tour buses, limos and just plain gawkers come by their house every December, even though the house is at the end of a virtual dead-end street. The Millers don’t mind at all. In fact, they encourage it.

“I have a full Santa suit and I go outside and pass out candy canes to the visitors,” said Curt. “Last year, we had 1,200 visitors.”

It all began about a decade ago when they started a habit of buying a different snowman every year. Before long, they were into the hard stuff – perimeter lighting, PVC archways and stars on the exterior walls.

Once again, the key is organization, and that begins with organizing the electricity.

“We put in a whole new service panel, but we needed one anyway,” said Rene. “Before that, we had extension cords running everywhere. We even drilled a hole under the door so that we could run a cord into the basement (to an outlet).”

Now, even with an updated electrical panel, it takes a while to switch on all of the parts of their display.

“Let’s see, we have 12 (switches) just in the house alone, and then three in the garage and three out on the patio,” said Rene (pronounced Reen).

“Everything is on 20 amp breakers, and everything runs through surge protectors,” said Curt.

“Our electrical bill goes up $200 to $250 just for the month of December,” said Rene. “But it’s worth it to us.”

All of the extension cords and strings of lights are labeled and stored in plastic bins according to their location in the display. The Millers have a large steel shop/garage with wide shelves running the length of the building. Several shelves are dedicated entirely to the Christmas fixtures.

Organization extends even to the ornaments on the tree. Each ornament is labeled as to where it came from and when it was acquired.

The Millers didn’t begin with a design plan – they just start adding items over the years. Now, in order to make it look its best, they spend a lot of time eyeballing it as they install it.

“We go across the street and sit on the neighbor’s front porch and say, ‘Hey, we need to move that one that direction,’” said Curt.

Movement (as in, flashing lights or sequenced lights) is just as critical as color.

“You want some movement, but not a lot,” said Rene.

“You don’t want it too gaudy,” said Curt.

Some items are ready-made, like a light display in the shape of a railroad train. Others Curt embellishes with his own touches. For instance, he adds strings of lights below the stars on the walls to turn them into shooting stars.

Other items are found items that seem to have a Christmas theme. A real, full-sized traffic stoplight sits on the driveway, flashing merrily in green, red and yellow. A brother-in-law found a surplus stop light and gave it to him.

To check out this festive Miller-land, go to Francis and turn north on Calispel (about three blocks west of Division). Go north until Calispel ends, and you’ll see the home on your right. They won’t mind if you bring the kids up to look into the front window. By the way, Calispel is not a true dead-end – you can turn left at the end of the road and exit via Whitehouse Street.