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Neighbors All Aglow

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By STEVE KORNACKI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 7, 2007

John Banacki has aliens at the North Pole, Santa Homer Simpson standing 9 feet tall (inflated) and lights strung all the way up his 60-foot pine trees. A boating Florida Santa and a traditional Nativity scene contribute to the glow at 2478 Indian Trail E.

Mark Bourdon has 45,000 lights covering his house, roof included, and a diorama that takes up a full bay of his three-car garage. The Alpine town at Christmas has more than 100 ceramic buildings and is circled by a chugging model train.

"It started out as a rivalry between us and one guy back down in the neighborhood, Bourdon," Banacki says. "We tried to go one up on each other, and then the whole neighborhood got into it. It has really gotten carried away.

"We're like the Clark Griswold house, and Bourdon is like the perfect Christmas tree house, with everything neat and in a row."

They say 500 to 600 vehicles stream through their Indian Trails subdivision off Alderman Road nightly, including tour buses packed with senior citizens and visiting Europeans. As Christmas gets closer, Mike Lewchenko, a neighbor of Bourdon's, dresses as Santa and hands out candy canes to the kids.

Bourdon likes to have fun with Banacki, a local chiropractor.

"We use Banacki like cannon fodder to make noise and attract people into the neighborhood," says Bourdon. "I'm not into aliens, though.

"Are we competing? Hey, I am the Joneses, and he's trying to keep up with the Joneses."

Bourdon's Christmas village ITALS is END ITALS 100 percent larger this year.

Banacki's salute to all things Christmas, and some that aren't, is hard to miss. Just take U.S. 19 to Alderman Road. Go west on Alderman about 11/2 miles to the entrance of Indian Trails. The light from the displays that add $500 to Banacki's monthly electric bill will immediately grab your attention.

"Banacki had a pink monkey out there last year," says Jim Arntz, a neighbor of Bourdon's whose display includes lighted Christmas candles, angels, reindeer and holly made in his garage woodshop. "If it lights up, he plugs it in. We try to be tasteful."

A Shocking Display … Literally

The other neighbors really do like Banacki. They just can't help bashing his Halloween approach to Christmas decorating.

At least, they seem to like him.

Banacki, wife Arlene, their four grown children, in-laws and friends began putting up the displays the night before Thanksgiving and had it finished that weekend.

"If you're getting turkey here," he says, "you are stringing lights."

Arlene Banacki says, "He got shocked a couple times yesterday. It was wet."

They tried renting a cherry picker one year to string lights up into the tall pines. But the only thing that works is Banacki's system of tying a weight to string and heaving it into the limbs to be used as a pulley.

"We tell kids who ask that we have a monkey that takes the lights up there," Banacki says.

"And then they ask, 'Where is your monkey, mister?' I tell them, 'He's done his job and he's sleeping.'"

Kids stole one of his green aliens one year. Banacki noticed the heist in progress and took off after the thieves. All he got was a broken foot.

The three aliens and their silver spaceship comprise his favorite display. They're surrounded by penguins, polar bears, a snowman and Santa in a sleigh being pulled by reindeer.

Banacki and Bourdon have the lights on nightly from 6 to midnight until at least Jan. 1.

"It started out with just the normal sort of light display," Bourdon says. "But then we added just a little more, just a little more. And it turned into a monster."

To reach Bourdon's house, turn right onto Indian Trails North at Banacki's corner and then left onto Indian Trails West. His two-story house with the glowing white roof is at 2449 Indian Trails W.

To see the diorama, you'll have to park along the street and walk. He's usually hanging around to answer questions.

The Bourdons have hundreds of Department 56 ceramic houses, buildings, people and trees in their village surrounded by the Alps cut from Styrofoam with trees painted in the foreground by his wife, Patty. An elevated cable traverses it, while Santa and his reindeer circle above.

A homemade Christmas music CD plays over loudspeakers.

"We have everything from Alvin and the Chipmunks to Sinatra," Mark Bourdon says.

Circuits Blow 'All The Time'

Nutcrackers the size of grown men, Santa's mailbox and a snowman made out of plastic that looks like ice blocks decorate the yard. The trees and bushes have strings of red, gold, green, blue and amber lights. The sides of the house are covered with rows of purple lights that have a pink shine.

"I have dedicated sub panels on timers and still blow circuits all the time," he says. "I have 15 plugs just for lights, and it adds $750 to $800 to the electric bills. But it's worth it."

Bourdon wraps the lights around hundreds of rows of cup hooks and nails he pounded into place years ago.

"The initial setup was a bear," he says.

"The glare from his house is so great that I'm like the neighbor who puts sunglasses on to see through it in '[National Lampoon's] Christmas Vacation,'" says next-door-neighbor and brother Paul Bourdon. "I only have 50 percent of the lights he has."

Younger brother winks and adds, "The people coming by say mine is the best, though."

Ahh, but can younger brother match this:

"We're international," says Mark Bourdon. "Some folks from England filmed our house, and two years later there's a knock on the door. We open the door and they say, 'Remember the people from England who filmed your house? We're their neighbors.'

"And we have a family from Paris who stops by each year and brings us a different ornament."

Did we mention that Patty Bourdon has a 12-foot tree inside, 5,000 ornaments and 20,000 more lights? Or that the Banacki's have eight decorated Christmas trees and a life-size waving Santa in their house?

Hey, these folks make Clark Griswold look like a piker.

"My brother's Alpine village is really tough to beat, though," says Paul Bourdon.

Adds Mark: "And aliens don't beat it, no way."

Reporter Steve Kornacki can be reached at (813) 731-8170 or skornacki@tampatrib.com.

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