Christmas Decorating Ideas

They started small. A string of lights here, a figurine there.But soon the Christmas decorations on Deer Road turned into a holiday extravaganza of glowing, blinking, whirring and twinkling.

The four houses are clustered on the dead-end street that stops at a tall barrier that separates them from the traffic traveling Interstate 295.

But drivers on nearby Chapel Avenue have no problem seeing the lights after dark. The scene attracts dozens of cars every night.

"It's worth it, the traffic and all," said Charles Danks, 72, who lives at 512 Deer Road. Danks said his grandson Gary DelRocini Jr. sets up lights both at his own house down the street as well as his grandpa's house.

DelRocini, 21, said it is not a competition between his family's homes and the other two neighbors, J.R. Cappella and Chris Berry, who also go all out every year. It's so friendly that the neighbors are pooling together to hand out candy canes and hot chocolate this Saturday and host Santa Claus from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., said DelRocini.

The Deer Road neighbors will also collect canned goods for a food bank. The only competition is with Mercer Street, across from the Cherry Hill police station, which has made the local news and won decoration contests before, said DelRocini.

But "people say we're the best in the area," DelRocini said. Anna Marie DelRocini, Gary Jr.'s mother, said the tradition started with Cappella, who always had a large holiday display. Danks said the availability of bigger and better Christmas decorations, like inflatable snow globes and light-up figurines, helped add to the lawnfest.

Every year, the neighbors on Deer Road add a new decoration to the line-up, keeping it a surprise for their fellow decorators until the plugs hit the outlet. The electricity bill was up about $100 last year, thanks to replacing traditional lights with LED and energy-efficient bulbs, DelRocini said.

In previous years, November and December could bring a $400 jump in electrical bills. However, DelRocini said he probably spent about $500 this year buying new items for his lawn. He said there is no exact method to how he decorates the lawn, but he does try to not make it look like a lot of gadgets set up at random.

"I just start pulling stuff out from the shed, place it, stand back and look," he said. "If I don't like that there, I will move it. There is no specific way we decorate, we just try to see if it looks good." His favorite decoration is a ski ramp with two mechanical polar bears, which he inherited from his doctor, who used to set up a huge, handmade display before giving away the elements of his display to people who wrote him letters.
Does it get to be a burden? "Every year, especially when one of the lights blow out or something breaks," said Anna Marie DelRocini. "But we enjoy it, the kids enjoy it and the people who come around, they love it."