| This first appeared in the Woodcroft Gazette, December 2000. Holiday Lights: A Tradition of Unity and Giving By Elizabeth H. Watkins Special to the Woodcroft Gazette Holiday Lights, Woodcroft?s annual display of luminaries and the Woodcroft Women?s Club (WWC) largest fundraiser of the year, will mark its 16th season Saturday, December 16th. As we tend to reflect on tradition this time of year, what is behind this Woodcroft event? How was Holiday Lights started and what does it mean? What has kept the flame of this community tradition fanned? Nancy Payne, president of the WWC from 1987-1989, and a former chair of Holiday Lights, recalls, ?It was a wonderful experience particularly in the beginning because we had people moving in from all over the world. [The event] earned money, and we wanted to share our goods with everybody else.? She points out Holiday Lights helped establish Woodcroft?s identity as a new subdivision. ?Holiday Lights was a wonderful project that showed community spirit.? Nancy and her husband, Rob, who was president of the Woodcroft Community Association (WCA), teamed up to galvanize the whole community to put out luminaries. Nancy says that, in her time, Holiday Lights would bring out a lot of people. ?People would wander around. It was absolutely gorgeous. People made a very big deal to get their outside decorations out, and people would come out to see them. People would entertain that night.? She remembers a couple of times during the afternoon of Holiday Lights having someone baby-sit in the Swim and Tennis Club while volunteers were busy at the sand pile and with other activities. Nancy also remembers drinking coffee and munching donuts during ?several cases of rotten weather.? Nancy attributes former Woodcroft residents Diane and Tim Franks with starting Holiday Lights. The Franks had moved to Woodcroft from Chesterfield County, Va., where Diane?s women?s club, the Smoketree Women?s Club, did Holiday Lights. The Franks have since moved to Bluffton, SC, but Diane had a chance to reminisce during a recent telephone conversation. According to Diane, the event was named Holiday Lights to express unity, to ?make it for everybody? regardless of religion or creed. Diane founded the Woodcroft Women?s Club and spearheaded Holiday Lights. ?It was awesome. The first year there was so much traffic you couldn?t move. The second year we hired policemen to direct traffic. I cannot explain the excitement we had in the neighborhood.? Holiday Lights was held the first Sunday before school was out. For the Franks it was a family thing ? involving their three children. Diane says her boys, now ages 20 and 29, look back on Holiday Lights as ?the most fun they?ve ever had in their life.? And Tim worked as a builder with Parker Lancaster, who donated ?just about all the sand.? ?I loved it, but it wore me out,? Diane says with a laugh, joking that it was more fun the second year when Nancy Payne took over. Other long-time Woodcroft residents remember whole-hearted community participation and a festive feel throughout Woodcroft. Betty Tompkins moved to Woodcroft in 1986 and joined the WWC in early spring 1987. She remembers a lot of Holiday Lights participation in earlier times. ?We?d go out walking and just about everybody had the luminaries. It was gorgeous,? she says. She and her husband, Nick, would walk all around the neighborhood and admire luminaries along Sanderling, Woodbine, and Saddlewood. Betty says the view down Saddlewood looked ?like a little city.? ?That stood out in my mind more than anything.? Betty continues, ?You could go walking and it was bumper to bumper (now that has changed, too), a steady line of cars. It was enjoyable, really.? She remembers one year a helicopter flew over Woodcroft and took pictures. Santa paid a visit during Holiday Lights a few times, throwing peppermint candy to the kids from an open vehicle. Some members of Betty?s church choir came by the Tompkins? house for hot cider, and then took Betty with them to carol up and down Highgate Drive. Linda Willis has been involved with Holiday Lights since 1987, and has served as a neighborhood captain for Westridge since 1988. She remembers the first year she had no idea what it would look like, but it looked like ?a fairyland.? Westridge residents always had a couple of open houses, and many used Holiday Lights as enhancement for a party. ?It has never ceased to delight me,? she says, adding that it has been very gratifying to meet some of the recipients of ?our hard-earned money? over the years. (Last year the WWC donated money to charities/organizations including the Durham Rescue Mission, the Cancer Companion, Meals on Wheels, Battered Women?s Shelter, Habitat for Humanity, Send a Kid to Camp, the Durham Public Library, and Rails to Trails.) Donnie Dietrich, another long-time WWC member and current head of the Woodcroft Community Association, chaired Holiday Lights for about six years, taking over after Nancy Payne. She remembers time-consuming and hard work, and one Holiday Lights in particular that was bitterly cold and only about 10 people showed up to help. Beyond that, though, she emphasizes, ?As a family, it was the one day of the year that we all gave 100 percent to someone else. That?s what made it special to me. I wanted my kids to grow up knowing that there were people out there that were not as well off as they were . . . I was raised very poor and always said that when I grew up, I was going to have everything I wanted and then help people less fortunate.? Donnie concludes, ?I think that the work gives you a real sense of community, and I don't mean just Woodcroft. It makes you think about the whole of Durham, when you're out there working like crazy so some kid or adult you've never seen and probably will never see or meet, will have a toy, coat, or maybe we'll even help to pay for someone?s kitchen to be updated or a wheel chair ramp to be built.? Holiday Lights may be a massive undertaking for organizers, volunteers, and residents alike, but when each candle is lit at dusk, the real meaning shines through: a sense of community spirit, and a warmth that comes from knowing you are helping others. |