Brightening season for military families

Getting ready for the holidays has been tough for Cheryl O’Boyle, whose husband Matthew is serving with the Army National Guard in Iraq.

“There’s time you just don’t want to deal with it,” she said in an interview this week.

But she got a boost on Wednesday when a local decorating company donated Christmas lights, garlands and a wreath along with a crew to install them.

“They are gorgeous,” O’Boyle said after the Christmas Décor workers finished their job and turned on the lights. Christmas Décor is a nationally franchised part of Senske Lawn and Tree Care Inc. of Spokane Valley.

O’Boyle’s two children – Caitlin, 4, and Liam, 6 – “loved them,” she said of the lights.

While it’s been tough getting into the holiday spirit with her husband on his second tour in Iraq, she’s been forcing herself to summon the spirit “because you have to for the kids.”

She said Liam’s eyes got big when he saw the lights, while Caitlin declared them to be “pretty.”

But she misses her husband, who has been serving in Iraq since October with the 81st Brigade based in Moses Lake. He is expected to return next summer.

Bob Landaker, manager of Christmas Décor in the Spokane area, said the O’Boyle home is one of about 50 homes of service personnel that are being decorated by Christmas Décor franchises around the country as a gift to the service families.

“We just want to bring joy to the families that can’t have their loved ones home for the holidays,” he explained as his crews installed the O’Boyles’ lights. We just want to give back.”

Theirs was the fourth home decorated in the Spokane area as a donation by the local Christmas Décor franchise since the program started four years ago.

Landaker said he was at a Christmas Décor conference in Las Vegas when he suggested doing the decorating as a way to give back to the community, and the idea caught on nationally.

“We ended up setting up the soldier program,” he said.

O’Boyle was selected after she called Christmas Décor inquiring about the cost of the service, which is about $400 to $600 for most homes. She was selected for the donation.

The company provided all of the decorations, which O’Boyle gets to keep, just like other customers. The decorations include LED-type lights that use far less energy than incandescent lighting.

The crews hook up the timer-controlled system so that it is compatible with the home’s circuitry, Landaker said.

Christmas Décor has five two-person crews and expects to decorate 350 homes this year, down from more than 400 last year, he said.