Santa, Snowmen, and Jeeps- Oh My!
Although the holidays may seem a bit different this year, there is one constant: Phillip and LuAnn Rittenhouse’s Winter Wonderland light display.
Sprawling 3 acres and located at N2015 Synder Road, a mile West of Elroy, Wisconsin, the Rittenhouse’s recently geared up for their 19th year of holiday cheer. But this story began years earlier.
It started back in 1993, when the Phillip and LuAnn Rittenhouse got married. LuAnn said, “Before that, I knew Phil liked to decorate for Christmas, but I didn't know how much, and I always like to decorate for Christmas. So, we just get a few blow molds that year, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and a snowman. Then, the next year, we got the shepherd and sheep, and the Santa Claus in the sleigh with two reindeer.” It did not stop at that, of course. The year after, Phil and LuAnn continued adding to their annual display with some Wiseman and other pieces. “It just kind of ballooned when we moved to this place where we're at now,” she said.
Before moving to their farm on Snyder Road, the Rittenhouse’s lived in downtown Elroy. “That's where we started. It was kind of funny, because we lived in between our landlord and the mayor, so we had to behave,” she said laughing. “Our landlord, when she saw what we were doing she's like, ‘well you can decorate my yard too’. But when we moved here, all of our stuff fit in our front yard and we knew that we could expand. So, we did.”
The amount the couple have invested in their display over the years has not been cheap, not to mention their electric bill. Their annual display truly is a labor of love, a love of making people happy. LuAnn explained, “We're very, very thankful for the donations that we get. It helps us out so much. We just decided since we weren't able to have children of our own, and had explored adopting and it was much too expensive for us at the time, we would take money we would have spent on our children and spend it on our display so that the neighborhood kids that drive by could enjoy. So that's kind of the thought behind why we keep growing every year. And we just really enjoy it, and our neighbors enjoy it and give us pretty good feedback.” She said in a solemn voice.
“Alliant Energy likes us,” Phil said with a chuckle. “They came out two January's ago and replaced our transformer. Before that, it was amazing to them that we were having blackouts all the time, I guess. But this one here, they assured us that this new one could light a 25-house subdivision or something like that. So, it's supposed to be sufficient.”
Taking on a display of this scale today, takes a considerable amount of time and maintenance. Phil admitted that during the holiday season, he takes on the role of maintenance man after he finishes his regular job. Asked about the challenges Phil said, “There are just the 1000’s upon 1000’s of steps that you do. My shop is at one end of the property and some of the display is clear at the other end. I know how many steps it is from the house to the shop, and then from the house down there. Height is one for me, I get some help with that though being able to reach everything. Things are starting to get heavy. I would say this year it started off with this the knees and stuff like that, and you're sore. Just your normal aches and pains, but when you hear that little kid coming down through the road with the window down and screaming this and that, I guess it's all good. I'm standing here right now thinking, how I got that candy cane out there, or the snowman out over there.”
Phil constantly has to check that everything is functioning and displayed how it should be. The sporadic wind tends to knock things over even if anchored. “Like today, I thought it was nice out, but apparently the wind must have gust at some point, because we had about five or six blow molds that were knocked over,” he said. LuAnn added, “So when he got home, he had to set those back up and go through and check everything. There's still a couple of things that need lightbulbs yet.”
New additions this year include a drive inn movie theatre, featuring Christmas films like the stop action classic Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Attended by a few rows of snowmen and gingerbread couples alike, took thinking out side the box to a new level. LuAnn shared, “Well, we had this idea like three years ago but we weren't sure how we're gonna accomplish it. We were able to find a Jeep at a garage sale early in the season for 10 bucks. Those are those Power Wheels Jeeps, and we thought yes, we're gonna do it this year. So, over the summer we started accumulating more Jeeps and the small figures that would sit in them. We get to the end of the summer and Phil's like ‘okay, how am I going to build a screen?’ The week before we were going to turn the lights on, he started working on the screen and finished last night.”
This year’s display also sports a 12-foot Christmas tree donated by the ladies of the Elroy Lawn and Garden Club. A donation that left Phil scratching his head when assembling the tree. “We got a phone call them from the ladies and they wanted to know if we wanted the tree. I said ‘yeah, I'll come down and take a look at it.' So, I went down and looked at it and I said, ‘yeah I'll take it’. Well anyway, the tree is in three or four sections. I don't know how they even stood that up. The center section I can't pick up.”
The Rittenhouse’s try to have the display fully operational every night. “We try to get everything lit up around five every evening and turn off the display around 10 o'clock, unless it's extremely cold or very few visitors come down the road. We’ve noticed recently, that after nine o'clock at night, hardly anyone goes by. So, we've actually been shutting down at like nine thirty, nine forty, which is great for us because we're getting a little tired,” LuAnn said smiling.
Other conditions that keep the display non-operational are heavy rain, sleet, snowstorms and/or high winds. Phil and LuAnn urged the public to check their Facebook Page on any change of schedule or questionable weather.
Phil and LuAnn will keep their display up for a few weeks yet for as many as possible to enjoy. “It'll probably go as long as I can possibly get Phil to have it up after New Year's. I hate to see it go down because the yard looks so empty afterward. He usually tries, if we have nice weather, to get everything in before it gets nasty and frozen. He has to hang all of the inflatables in the shop, so they dry out before he can pack them up,” LuAnn said. After hearing the whole breakdown process, there's a lot of things people might not realize that goes into a display this large. What does go into it? Well, hard work, dedication, selflessness, creativity, and one couple’s love of making the holiday season a little brighter for everyone, no matter what.
Be sure and subscribe to Driftless Now’s YouTube channel.
