Every December, all of Emerald Forest transforms into a winter wonderland.
For about a decade now, the area, including Shiloh Road, is filled with house after house that puts up holiday displays that dazzles everyone from all over the area and draws visitors every season.
This year, that tradition has continued.
Guests made their way to Shiloh Road and all other parts of Emerald Forest Thursday night and were awestruck by the displays of the lights and decorations.
The Junior League of Odessa was also on hand to give Carriage Rides as part of a fundraiser.
Each night during the holiday season, people will walk up and down the streets in Emerald Forest and marvel at the Christmas lights from each house.
Permian High School AP Government and Politics Teacher Bob Brescia is one of the many people that lives in the Emerald Forest subdivision that participates in the holiday themed decorations.
For him and his neighbors, the planning starts as early as the day after Christmas.
“I can’t speak for all the neighbors but in terms of planning and Christmas, because this is just like any other Christmas operation, the planning starts on December 26 the day after Christmas,” Brescia said. “That’s when the planning for the next year, as far as putting things together, that’s a year-long exercise for me and that’s an exercise for the neighbors themselves but I would say towards the summer time is when people start thinking about the holidays coming up. That’s when they start planning for Halloween and Christmas and to begin to make things. They all do a wonderful job at it.”
Brescia has lived in Odessa for eight years now.
He spent the first five years at UTPB before moving over to K-12 education.
Brescia said that every Christmas season is different as far as decorations go.
“Every year, we plan something different,” Brescia said. “One year, I had a Christmas train in the front yard. It was a pretty nice train. Another year, we had an oil derrick and the lights made it look like oil was coming out of the well.”
Brescia said he also has a windmill and a Santa Claus that he has fitted with LED strip lighting as well as other characters.
“I have one character that blows a horn,” Brescia said. “I outfitted him with LED strip lights. I called him Horacio horn blower. I give everyone a name. … They are named Tex, Tessa and the two gingerbread cookie carolers, they are gingerbread cookie singers and all four are LED signs where their arms and legs move.”
Brescia was able to make his characters’ mouths move to the music to look like they’re singing and he didn’t stop there.
“I got dangerous and went into two very large RGB matrices and those are driven by computers and computer software to make it all look synchronized,” Brescia said.
Brescia uses a character animator to make the mouths move properly to what’s being said then do a rear projection onto a window.
“One of the large rooms we have has a large window that faces the street and I do a projection and all kinds of imagery plays on that window as the songs are playing,” Brescia said. “You can hear the songs outside. I also have a radio transmitting capability. So I put down there tune your car to 87.9 FM to hear the shows. You can hear it on the radio. That becomes useful on days when it’s really cold. People come by when it’s really cold.”
Needless to say, he gets a lot of compliments from people who pass by. It’s not just Odessans that stop by either as Midlanders will come over.
Brescia will often play Santa Claus as well.
“The other day, a few people came over and introduced themselves,” Brescia said. “I’d go out and meet the people. I also dress up as Santa. The little kids would come around and they say “are you the real Santa?’ and I tell them I’m Santa’s helper. I want to maintain the magic for the kids.”
There are no set themes for the entire neighborhood as each house will do something different with decorations.
One house on Sapphire Street does a dinosaur theme with the front yard decked out with dinosaur inflatable displays.
Others will have manger in the front with signs reading “Joy” and “Believe” lit up.
Another residence in the area (located on Shiloh Road) is decorated with holiday lights and themed displays from Disney’s movie Frozen.
Judge Sara Kate Billingsley is another resident in the Emerald Forest subdivision.
This year, she chose to go with a Grinch themed Christmas for her front yard which includes a Whoville.
In the past, Billingsley said her Christmas decorations would be mostly inside the house.
But this is the first time she’s done outside decorations and it won’t be the last either.
“This house has such a great front yard that we went crazy for Halloween and crazy for Christmas,” Billingsley said. “I think I want to do Valentine’s Day and Easter. I want to do all the holidays now.”
She’s also received plenty of compliments from people who pass by.
“Everyone has been so kind,” Billingsley said. “They’ve said the nicest things. COVID has been really tough so it’s nice to sit outside and have people drive by and say nice things or hop out of their cars and take photos of my Whohouse or the Grinch and that’s pretty fun.”
A lot of her decorations are handmade.
“The cotton candies, the Whoville post office is handmade and the Whohouse is handmade,” Billingsley said. “It takes awhile. Everything is sculpted out of Styrofoam and painted on. It takes awhile. I don’t know how many hours but it’s my therapy. Sometimes I’ll have a hard day on the bench and then go out and paint something. I used to cook and now I paint apparently.”
It’s all worth it to see everyone’s expressions when they come by.
“I have a job where people don’t smile,” Billingsley said. “You don’t come to court because you’re happy and I don’t get to see many smiles. My favorite part is seeing unadulterated joy on the faces of kiddos and adults alike. How can you not be happy listening to Christmas music, drinking hot chocolate and looking at all the amazing houses up and down the street? Every house decorates which I think is so cool because everyone is in to the Christmas spirit and it makes everyone happy. I think the world needs more of that.”
Longtime Odessan Johnny Lasiter who is retired is another resident over at Shiloh Road who also participates in decorations.
“I guess when we moved into the house here, it had only been about half populated and was a bunch of vacant lots,” Lasiter said who’s lived in the area for 26 years now and has lived in Odessa for 44 years. “There were a few things out. And then as more and more people moved in, it grew and before long, it became the Christmas Street of Odessa.”
Lasiter will put lights on the house and decorate the tress outside as well as wrap the trunks.
“What we’ve done, as far as up in the trees themselves, we’ve gotten these big balls from hobby lobby and I wrap them up in lights,” Lasiter said. “One tree will have different colored lights like red, blues and greens. I have some Santa Claus and reindeer out in the front yard. They’re about 25-years old. They’ve been redone and every now and then, I’ll repaint them and re-light them every once in awhile.”
Lasiter says he does most of it by himself as far as setting everything up with the exception of the lights on the roof.
“I do everything on my own around the house except on the roof,” Lasiter said. “My wife decided that a 75-year old didn’t need to be on the roof. I get someone else to do that but everything else, we do. Some people will have some people come in and do it for them.
For Lasiter, the decorating starts right after Halloween.
“The pressure is on after Halloween,” Lasiter said. “That’s when we start decorating heavily. I guess what I enjoy is when people come by. We have a big 100-pound labradoodle dog and we’ll go out every night so he can visit with people. It’s neat. In addition to the cars driving by, there are a bunch of people coming out and walking around.”
Like most other residents on Shiloh Road, Lasiter and his wife Sandra meet new people every year.
“You get to meet a lot of people that way,” Lasiter said. “They enjoy it. Especially when they have little kids. It’s a lot of work but it’s a lot of fun.”
