Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Although Epps Lane residents have stopped their elaborate neighborhood Christmas displays and Dave and Darlene Coats didn’t do theirs last year, the Coats family is back in action this year and using some of the pieces from the Epps Lane decorations.
They’ve been decorating in Sweet Home since about 2000, the year after they moved here, Darlene Coats said. Their home, with a sign “Dave’s Slice of Heaven,” is at 41852 North River Drive, about 200 yards east of the junction of Northside and North River drives.
With Epps Lane, “we usually are in the contest,” Coats said. Her home usually won the now-defunct Lebanon-Sweet Home area realtors decoration and lighting contest for the rural areas, and Epps Lane usually won the street award.
Last year, Epps Lane neighbors stopped doing it as a group, and the Dave Coats had surgery that left him unable to put the lights up.
“My husband has always loved decorating for Santa,” Darlene Coats said. Everywhere they’ve moved, they’ve always put up lights and decorations, and it just gets bigger every year.
“He started the first of November,” she said. “He was getting finished before the storm.”
The storm blew down many of the decorations, but he got them up and turned them on Dec. 9, she said.
Epps Lane gave the Coats a train station and penguins, Coats said, and “people should come check it out.”
She has no idea how many lights are actually in the display, she said, but it’s impressive.
The decorations include a large helicopter and a hot-air balloon, she said. Her husband builds some of the pieces himself, the balloon display just this year, he said.
“I come up with something new every so often,” Dave Coats said.
“He’s got one where a guy shoots a cannon,” Darlene Coats said. Sparks show up at the end of the cannon. Another has a Christmas package traveling around the yard before ending up in Santa’s bag. Another has Santa shooting hoops.
The display has “lots of animation,” she said.
Dave Coats said he’s been doing Christmas displays for about 40 years, way back when he lived in the California community of Montclair on a cul-de-sac next to his brother-in-law.
“We entered the contest every year back there,” he said. “We usually won something.”
The family had help this year from Mike Lundquist and his grandson, Will, and from Coats’ grandson, Christopher Stuart.