The signal comes at dusk, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, when a Christmas tree is lit in St. Louis Hills’ Francis Park. With a flash of red and white and a burst of Steve Pariani’s happy accordion music, a near- by block of Murdoch Avenue turns into Candy Cane Lane. Nick Zervos and Missy Doll strut the sidewalk wearing coveralls strung head to toe with lights. More lights are strung back and forth above the street, wrapped around trees, draped over bushes.
If people are older and don’t have the energy but still want to parti- cipate, the volunteer crew trims for them. In years when a house in the neighborhood happened to be unoccupied, Bob Klasek says, “We went ahead and threw some lights on bushes or stuck an inflatable Santa on the lawn, so there wouldn’t be a dark spot.”
Talk about peer pressure.
“Two years ago, we had a person who did not decorate,” he admits. “OK, that’s her right. But the people driving down the street said, ‘Who lives there? Scrooge?’ Really, the only person who doesn’t like it is the pizza boy, ’cause he can’t deliver. They tell you to walk out to the corner. Once a police car came through, and we got everybody moved over. We think it was a test, because he didn’t stop on the block.”
On the weekends, every visitor to the 6500 block of Murdoch Avenue receives a candy cane. Audiovisual expert T.J. Sundhausen sets an inflatable screen on somebody’s lawn and projects a holiday movie: maybe Polar Express or It’s a Wonderful Life. “Anything that’s long, so he doesn’t have to keep running over there and changing it,” says Klasek. Although they’re not likely to show Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation.
Sundhausen’s even got a radio frequency so visitors can tune in on their car radios as they cruise down the lane. Sometimes Santa shows up—he’s a friend of somebody on the block. Another neighbor’s buddy from St. John Vianney High School has started making sand sculptures for the display: Santa the first year, the Grinch the second. Klasek doesn’t know what’s coming this year: “He just says, ‘Get me 7 tons of sand, and I’ll make something.’”
A 350-pound sign at the entrance to the lane is held up by aircraft cable suspended between two oak trees. John Kuehner, a heating-and-cooling expert, figured it out. He also fabricated giant snowflakes from PVC pipe and wood, and neighbors formed an assembly line in his garage to make more of them. They even made the strands of lights that canopy the street, wiring sockets to electrical line.
It all started almost a decade ago, when Kuehner wrapped red-and-white lights around a tree in front of his house. His neighbors liked the candy-cane whimsy. They started decorating their own yards and houses a little more elaborately. The guys on the block wrapped more and more trees. One night, they were gazing at their handiwork with satisfaction when somebody pulled up and asked, “Are you collecting money?”
So they decided they would, for charity.
“The first year it was about $300,” Klasek says. “We don’t like to talk amounts. You don’t want to do it and brag about it. Plus, then everybody comes over wanting us to do their charity. We do Feed My People, 100 Neediest Cases, that kind of thing. The people who contribute the most to making this happen have the most say.”
I mention a $10,000 figure that somebody threw out in 2009.
“Oh, it’s way beyond that now.”
People have proposed marriage on Candy Cane Lane. Neighboring streets have mustered lower-wattage imitations—Angel Alley, Reindeer Road, Snowflake Lane—and the guys on Candy Cane send people over to see those streets, too. Limousines come through, and tour buses, and car clubs on scavenger hunts.
Last winter was so mild, people walked from all over South City, stood by the bonfire, greeted the cars. “Could you mention walking?” Klasek asks hopefully. He’s tired of people whining about the traffic and inconvenience. “It takes, like, 10 minutes to go through. It starts after Thanksgiving and stops before Christmas, and we’re out here collecting money for people who have less. This could be the worst time of the year for them. Bear with us a little bit here.”
Come January, where do they store all this stuff? “It’s amortized throughout the neighborhood,” Klasek says. “I can’t tell you how many extension cords and three-ways I’ve got—my wife’ll kill me. Another guy’s got the snowflakes.”
Asked whether he festoons alongside his dad, Mick Klasek says, “I do not. That is his ordeal.” I remark on the odds of an entire block possessing such wholesome, outmoded holiday joy.
“Yeah,” he says, “we had a couple people actually put their houses up for sale because they hated it so much.”
One of them was the neighborhood Scrooge.
“And guess what she mentioned in her real-estate listing?” Bob inserts. “That the house was on Candy Cane Lane.”
