The Cupertino Courier
Cover Story
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Holiday Wonderland: The annual display's bright lights and amplified music draw visitors from as far away as Sacramento.
Holiday Glow
Christamas display becomes must-see destination
By Erin Hussey
In 1995, Sunnyvale neighbors Dave Severns and Andy Pease began stringing white Christmas lights on the magnolia trees in front of their homes. It was just the beginning.
Over the years, the Severns-Pease Christmas display on Tangerine Way has grown and branched out to become a must-see destination among the countless displays in the South Bay. Nearly 60,000 lights shimmy and dance to music generated by a computer that runs partially on solar power.
"A lot of people say this is like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," said Pease, referring to the classic holiday movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. "I take a little offense to that because we try and do it tactfully and discreetly, and we don't have any blow-ups."
Unlike the movie's Griswold family, Severns and Pease aren't trying to outdo their neighbors, or one another.
"It's collaboration and not a competition," Severns said. "We're at the point now where we have a meeting typically in March to go over what we want to change or do differently or add."
According to Pease, the display went from small- to big-time in 1996 when Severns decided to make his own icicle lights.
"I saw them in a high-end catalog," Severns said. "It was before they were very common and I thought, 'well, these are really neat.' " But after measuring his roof and calculating the cost of lights, which at the time was $1 per foot, he decided spending close to $2,000 just wasn't going to happen.
"I thought instead of ordering them, I could make them. So I made a prototype in September and brought it over to Andy." The following year Pease made his own set of icicle lights.
"For the first two or three years, we were offset at matching up," Severns said. "I would do something, then he would do something, but we never envisioned we would be where we are now."
Some of the other homemade decorations Severns and Pease have created together include rotating light globes, a giant American flag and bundles of red and white lights they've wrapped around city streetlights. Their most recent addition is a giant Christmas tree. But before any these of creations were allowed in the display, they had to receive the official seal of approval from their spouses.
"The wives are what we affectionately call the Tacky Committee," Pease said. This year Sharon Severns and Diane Pease approved a machine that blows out mock snow, new lighting software for the two magnolia trees and a few strings of strobe lights.
"We only turn them on infrequently," Severns said, referring to the small but powerful strobe lights. "But when we do, it's like you're at the baseball game and Barry Bonds just swung the bat; flashes go off everywhere."
The most time-consuming portion of setting up the display isn't making new decorations, stringing the trees or using the rented "cherry-picker" lift to wrap the streetlights. It's programming the music.
"You get so many possibilities when you are programming a song, it's almost like gridlock," Severns said. Although both Severns and Pease are engineers and computer fanatics, they don't rely on self-written software to coordinate the lights with the music. They use a program called Light-O-Rama, which allows them to control the lights to fade, shimmer or glow brighter with a click of a mouse. "It literally takes about 10 hours per song, minimum," Pease said. After they finish choreographing each song, Severns and Pease make different playlists for different times of the night.
Every night, Christmas songs, such as "Wizards in Winter" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, play from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Then the display switches over to non-Christmas "fun" songs, including "Dueling Banjos" and "We Will Rock You." At 8:30 p.m. the display returns to Christmas tunes and slowly starts to dim at 10 until it goes completely dark at 11. "We could leave for a week, and it should be able to do its thing," said Severns.
Although they put a lot of time, money and effort into their Christmas display, Severns and Pease said they've never considered charging people to view it.
"People were always saying, "You do so much work, you should charge admission,' " Pease said, "but we said we're not going to do that. Then Dave came up with the idea of tying in a food drive." Onlookers are encouraged to bring both monetary and food donations to be given to the Second Harvest Food Bank. Last year, the two collected close to eight barrels of food and almost $22,500.
In February, Second Harvest honored Severns and Pease with the 2005 Food Drive Community Champion Award. They also squeaked into the Blue Diamond donation category that includes large companies such as Cisco and Applied Materials.
"Our motto is, you give us the food/money, we give you the lights, nobody gets hurt," Severns stated in a newsletter email sent to the display's fan base. This year Severns and Pease are hoping to surpass the donations they collected last year; with only two weeks of running this year's display, it looks like a reasonable goal. On opening night alone, which took place Nov.25, they collected $12,534 and 21/2 barrels of food.
"It's really a great community effort, and it really brings the neighborhood together," said Donnis Stoner, who has lived across the street from Pease and Severns for more than 20 years. "Plus, the contributions that people make to the Second Harvest Food Bank are just wonderful and we are very supportive of that."
Stoner's husband, David, agrees, adding the neighborhood would be boring without the annual display.
"It would bother us if they didn't do it," he said. "You will always find some naysayers, but I have to tell you, those people, they are in the minority."
The Stoners are among the numerous neighbors who visit the display more than once during its holiday run. "When we have guests we bring everyone down to see the show," said Donnis Stoner. "We are very, very supportive of both families and fortunate to live here and enjoy it."
Spreading joy is what keeps Severns and Pease spending time, money and energy on their Christmas display.
"We make memories," Severns said. "Our display is something that people will remember for the rest of their lives."
The Severns-Pease Christmas display will run every night until Jan. 1 from 5:30 to 11 p.m. at 1164 and 1168 Tangerine Way in Sunnyvale. Onlookers are encouraged bring their Second Harvest Food Bank donations, park across street and tune their radios to 104.1 FM to enjoy the lights and coordinated music.
For more information on the Severns-Pease display, visit www.severex.com/xmas.
