Oh, Christmas house: Couple lights up Bayne Avenue for last holiday season
For more than two decades, the Christmas display at 20 Bayne Ave. in Lone Pine has put even the Griswolds to shame.
“Eddie and I, we just really enjoy it,” said Wanda Wagner, a decorating enthusiast who goes all out for Christmas. “The kids, they’re applauding, people are videoing. They just applaud and scream and take pictures with all the decorations, and then you’ll hear the parents. Ed enjoys that so doggone much.”
This year marks the last that Wagner and Ed Moore, her partner of 43 years, will transform their property into a spectacle of lights adored by the local community. The couple, now in their 70s, said the beloved Christmas display is simply too much work.
“We decided we were gonna quit this year, and everybody talked us into doing it. It’s just getting to be too much. Many a night I wake up, my back hurts, my legs,” Wagner laughed.
Wagner and Moore moved to Lone Pine 23 summers ago, and when Halloween rolled around, the couple was surprised theirs was the only yard filled with decorations.
“The neighbors said, ‘Oh, my heavens, if she decorates like that, what do those two do for Christmas?'” Wagner said. “And they found out.”
Every Christmas decoration that’s ever been in vogue is on display in the Wagner-Moore yard, from ’60s-style colored bulb lights and wooden woodland creatures popular in the ’80s, to lighted deer that graced lawns in the ’90s and contemporary inflatables.
“Everybody likes that Santa with the trough,” Wagner said, pointing to an inflatable of Santa’s reindeer snacking before their big flight. “They like the Nativity. They like our Amish buggy with the horse.”
People often mistake the Santa waving from that buggy for a real person, and many delight in the icicle lights hanging from branches, smile at the litter of schnauzers (an homage to the couple’s dog) and laugh at the snoring blow-up Santa.
Wagner and Moore begin decorating in early November, and it takes them between two and three weeks to lay out decorations, set up scenes, string and wrap their home and yard in Christmas lights. The fantastical display lights up the neighborhood from Thanksgiving evening through New Year’s Day.
“It’s a lot of work. You always have to test everything. You’re always gonna have bulbs out, and you have to redo stuff,” Wagner said. “Blow-ups, you have to go out and readjust them. We have to change a bunch of lights on the roof. I don’t know if we’re going to get it done or not. I think there’s only about five strands out of like 16 that are really good.”
Wagner said she tells Moore where bulbs need changing, and he does the heavy lifting. Neither minds, though: both have a history of holiday decorating. Moore used to help his mother erect elaborate Halloween displays (that was her favorite holiday), and Wagner grew up with a stepdad whose Christmas decor was the talk of the town.
She carried on the glimmering childhood tradition of setting up Christmas displays when she moved into her own home in Houston, Pa.
“I had a double lot. We would decorate. The neighbors used to go to Florida for the winter, so I started taking over their yard,” Wagner said. “Then we come out here, you got an acre and a half. It was like, wow, I can really go to town.”
And go to town she does. When Christmas decor goes on sale following the holidays, Wagner and Moore load up their truck with pieces they don’t already own and bring the silver and gold and other decorations home to incorporate in the next year’s display.
That means every year, the display gets bigger. Even more fun: the whole neighborhood is in on the game now.
“What really makes it nice, when we light up, there’s cars all the way up this street,” Moore said. “When we first moved out here, not one person ever put a candle in the windows. We started, and got talking to each other, the neighbors and everybody just started joining in.”
People travel from as near as next door and as far as Georgia (a family was visiting relatives one holiday season) and mid-Pennsylvania (a pastor with local ties brought his parishioners out one year) to see the brilliant Bayne Avenue lights. Surrounding neighborhoods also put on dazzling displays; many people begin their Christmas lights caravan at Wagner and Moore’s place.
“The UPS or FedEx, that one guy who delivers, he stops and talks to us every time. He’ll (ask), even before the holiday, ‘You are gonna decorate, aren’t you?'” Wagner said.
Wagner and Moore spectate the spectators from inside Moore’s garage, where a television broadcasts Bayne Avenue visitors. Sometimes the couple puts out cookies and cocoa for light display-goers, and they always enjoy chatting with folks who drop by for the show.
The best thing, for both Wagner and Moore, though, is the children’s delight when they see all the lights.
“You hear the kids down there screaming and laughing, it makes it all worth it,” Moore said.
“Well, a lot of adults enjoy it, too,” Wagner added with a smile.
Thanksgiving evening, Christmas and New Year’s Eve are the busiest days for the display, but “you’ll see some of the same people like 15 times” throughout the season, and folks ride by nearly every day, Wagner said. The couple has never charged or accepted donations because they want the focus to be on stress-free joy.
“A lot of people can’t afford Oglebay and places. That’s one reason we never wanted to charge anybody. Just come out, enjoy the display,” Wagner said.
She and Moore are excited to welcome guests to their very merry Christmas house for the final hurrah this season, and both are saddened by the thought that this time next year, 20 Bayne Ave. will be dark, save for the strands of lights the couple keeps up year-round.
“People get a lot of enjoyment out of it,” said Moore, surveying his yard in daylight. “I hate giving it up, but you gotta do it.”