Local man’s light display again draws photographer to home 26 years later
Glen Williams of Dogwood Street in Shell Point began his elaborate yearly Christmas home decorations in 1982 when he and his wife Kathy lived in Ridgeland.
Fourteen years later they moved to their current home on Dogwood Street and continued the tradition of wowing neighbors with a yard full of Christmas-themed decorations.
Williams said he uses what others throw away to build his decorations or make modifications to those purchased in a store. “I look down and see a length of PVC pipe and think how I can use it. Or a piece of metal, anything that I can use I pick it up and bring it home,” he said.
Kathy Williams said she has nothing to with building or hanging the decorations.
“That’s his baby. I stay out of his way and help him clean up when Christmas is over,” she said. “He doesn’t get on the roof anymore either.”
Williams said people stop by and say they used to enjoy his lights when they were children and still like to come by every year to see them. “That’s why I do this,” he said. “But I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.”
Williams said he used to start decorating the day after Thanksgiving. Santa and his sleigh with a full complement of reindeer was suspended over his house. Other decorations were also on his house or suspended over his yard to compliment ground-based decorations, including a flight operations tower to guide the Jolly Old Elf in.
But these days Williams has cut back.
“It still takes me three-and-half weeks. But I don’t get on the roof at all and the number of decorations has decreased,” he said. “It takes a lot of effort to do this, and I don’t accept help from anybody. This is ‘my baby’ and I do it all myself. But I’m getting too old to carry on.”
Williams was telling this photographer from The Island News about his house being featured in the local newspaper the first year he and his wife moved to Dogwood Street. He retrieved a framed page from a December issue of The Beaufort Gazette in 1996.
The photographer – yours truly – couldn’t believe that he had taken the same photo of the same house 26 years earlier. Both of us stood silently for a moment pondering the irony of the event. Both of us just stood there shaking our heads in disbelief.
It was not exactly a traditional “Christmas Miracle.” But what are the odds?
Merry Christmas!
Bob Sofaly has been photographing people and what they do in Beaufort since Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980. He can be reached at bobsofaly@gmail.com.
