Editor's note: This story was originally published in 2015.
Two years ago, the Revis family moved smack-dab into the middle of Tucson’s Winterhaven neighborhood. It was the end of November.
“I was really hesitant to move here, especially right in the middle,” said Kristen Revis, 41, who remembers visiting Winterhaven during the holidays as a girl.
The location of their 1950s-era home puts them at the heart of the Winterhaven Festival of Lights, which will celebrate its 66th year when it starts Dec. 12 and runs through Dec. 26.
Not only does most of Tucson stroll past their home each December, but visitors congregate in front of their house, where vendors sell hot drinks and kettle corn.
The first year, the family just strung up some lights and called it good. But last year they adopted a theme — “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”
Much to the delight of Rich Revis, visitors took photos of their decorations.
“We have watched ‘Christmas Vacation’ since our kids were small, and we watched it when we were kids ... so our house is ‘Christmas Vacation,’ ” said Revis, 42.
Putting up the decorations last year took them a few mornings, and in future years the family of four plans to expand their display. This year, they are adding more lights, and a blow mold Santa sleigh, complete with reindeer.
“We have Cousin Eddie out front holding the hose in his bath robe and his hat, so we have a mannequin out there and a burnt Christmas tree sitting out front with all the ornaments on it,” Rich said.
To create the electrocuted cat from the movie, they took (with the owner’s consent, of course) long white hair from a neighbor’s dog to make the outline of a cat on a rug, said Annika Revis, 13. They also painted a golf cart to look like the Griswold family’s Truckster station wagon.
The Revis family stores their decorations in several sheds in their backyard. Neighbors with years worth of decor often use off-site storage.
“We have found it’s more fun to just embrace it,” Kristen said.
The family moved from a Foothills-area home to Winterhaven to join friends who already lived in the neighborhood. Their previous home had a five-car garage and vaulted ceilings. In moving, they down-sized about 1,000 square feet and lost a guest house and garage, Rich said.
Their new home needed little work when they moved in. Floors, doors, bathrooms and the master bedroom had all been replaced recently, Rich said. The family only had to swap out a few kitchen appliances and do some work in the backyard.
“We had been looking for a long time for a place in Winterhaven,” he said. “It’s kind of like moving back in time. Kids play in the streets and ride their bikes and play basketball ... and in the Foothills, we just didn’t have that at all. We were on a cul-de-sac and didn’t know anybody. You talked to your neighbors once every year and that was it. Here, you know all of your neighbors’ names and their kids and what they do.”
They call it “getting Winterhavened.”
“You’ll be out mowing the grass, and mowing the grass takes an hour instead of half an hour because somebody always walks up and wants to say, ‘Hi,’ or hang out and have a beer,” said Rich, who owns several car washes and a business that manufactures related products.
And that’s on a normal day. During the Festival of Lights, the revelry is ongoing.
“You know a lot of people and they know where you live,” Rich said. “It doesn’t matter if you know they are coming or not. They show up at your door, and they’re like, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ You make them some hot chocolate and send them around the neighborhood.”
Sometimes the family will accompany their friends on their stroll. By the end of the season, Annika and her brother Cole, 11, have had enough of Winterhaven walks.
“We walk around the neighborhood like 500 times,” Annika said.
After their first Christmas in Winterhaven, the Revis family added a natural gas fire pit, seating and a patio in front of their home, where they entertain most nights of the festival. Having their own gas fire pit means they can stay home and still socialize — and they don’t smell like wood smoke every night.
“Friends and acquaintances stop by, and it feels very much like the holiday season when you have people coming in,” said Kristen, a pediatric physical therapist. “We like to stock up on hot apple cider and hot chocolate and wine and sit outside at the fire pit almost every night.”
Sometimes strangers join them.
“It’s really a front-yard entertaining neighborhood,” Kristen said, adding that some neighbors gather around portable fire pits they move onto their driveways for the season.
Consequently, their bathroom is rather popular — but just for people they actually know. And some vendors.
“The kettlecorn people and coffee people who sell right outside our house, we let them use our bathroom when they need to, and we get all the kettlecorn we can eat,” Rich said.
For all that friendliness, there is some low-key competition. Neighbors try to one-up each other with their displays each year and coups happen when new streets steal awards from longtime winners.
“The prize is like 20 bucks and a sign on your front yard that says, ‘Best door’ or ‘Best mailbox,’ ” said Rich, the landscape chair for the neighborhood board. The neighborhood considered ditching the cash prize but decided, for humor’s sake, to keep the meager sum.
And for all the nuisance you may expect from having holiday walkers invade your neighborhood each night, this family says it’s not so bad.
So far, the Revis family hasn’t seen much of a hike in their electricity bill, though the fire pit did cause a bump in their gas use.
And traffic?
“Traffic is not a problem at all,” Rich said.
Except on drive-thru night, which is Dec. 26 this year. Then, “you either stay in all night or you stay out until 11 p.m.,” Rich added, noting that residents have passes and specific entrances they use.
“That being said, I just dropped my son off for swimming and then I am going to pick him up from swimming and take him to soccer and then come home again...” Kristen said. “During the festival, you don’t do that. You just come in once. You don’t try to drive.”
So instead, they hunker down, light up the fire pit and nurse mugs of hot chocolate as Tucson soaks in its version of a winter wonderland.
“You have to entertain,” Kristen said. “They’re all staring through the windows anyways.”
