FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Area’s Yule Spirit Lights Up Visitors

A week before Christmas last year, a visitor couldn’t find standing room on Joe and Bev Finnell’s front porch.

The reason: People wanted to get a peek at their miniature, window-box displays of Santa’s toy shop and winter wonderland village, see the mechanical ski lift climb up over the rooftop or watch animated children have a snowball fight.

“We had 10,000 names sign our guest book last year,” Bev Finnell said.

Finnell, who has decorated her home for 16 years, said those who sign her guest book represent only a fraction of the people who visit the homes in their Fountain Valley neighborhood to see the annual display put on by residents.

The Yuletide extravaganza, Finnell said, “is a big part of their family Christmas. People come from all over to see it.”

For 22 years, residents who live in the neighborhood off Brookhurst Street and Heil Avenue have wrapped their homes in holiday style. Residents deck their houses in elaborate, homemade decor, adorning exteriors with strings of lights, animated characters, Nativity scenes, fake snow and other seasonal trimmings.

Because the Christmas display has become so popular, even the Police Department must participate to control traffic and crowds.

Beginning this weekend and continuing through Christmas Day, visitors will not be allowed to drive their cars through the neighborhood from 6 to 10 p.m.

Only pedestrians will be allowed into the area, Sgt. Larry Griswold said. “That’s the best way to handle it,” he said. Otherwise, there would be “no access for emergency vehicles, and (traffic would) threaten the safety for pedestrians,” he said.

Police reserves and the Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol will assist with traffic control at all entrances into the neighborhood. Only residents are allowed access to the streets.

Visitors may park free at the nearby Fountain Valley Community Center on Brookhurst Street. The display area is bordered by Brookhurst Street on the east, Filbert Street on the west, Gladiola Circle on the north and Heil Avenue on the south. By walking west on Heil from the center, visitors can enter the neighborhood at Sycamore Street.

Residents agree that not allowing motorists is a good idea. “It’s safer for the children,” said Rocky Fleeman, whose home is decked out with animated bears and gingerbread men and scores of lights. “This way, they can run house to house and safely have a good time.”

Fleeman’s wife, Julie, said that blocking the street to traffic gives the area a family-type atmosphere like Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A.

“I’ve never seen people be so nice and people wishing each other a happy holiday,” she said. “I wish the whole world would be like that.”

Residents describe the neighborhood tradition as their gift to the community.

“I do it because I like to see the little kids and the happiness in their eyes,” Bev Finnell said. “You hear the laughter, see their enjoyment, and it makes it all worthwhile.”

Visitors, especially the children, are usually awe-struck by the embellishments. “It’s cool, really cool,” said 8-year-old Amanda Marth-Leipold of Huntington Beach.

Her friend, Heidi Weil, also 8, said seeing the decorated homes “makes me feel happy, because it’s the spirit of Christmas.”