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Holidays come to light at the Winter Lights Festival at Seneca Creek

Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Dan Gross⁄The Gazette Eye see, eye see! When the lights go on in the city ... they’re actually at the park — Seneca Creek State Park, that is, where the Winter Lights Festival runs through the end of the year. Click here to enlarge this photo Photos by Dan Gross⁄The Gazette Light and lively: More than 380 illuminated displays and 60 animated vignettes illuminate the 3-1⁄2-mile drive through Gaithersburg’s Seneca Creek State Park.

Still, nothing really says ‘‘American holiday experience” quite the way The City of Gaithersburg’s Winter Lights Festival does. For the past 10 years, folks in the thousands have been coming to take in the more than 380 illuminated displays and 60 animated vignettes from the comfort of their cars, vans and buses. There’s even a special trolley that trundles along the 3-1⁄2-mile route at specific times on selected days.

‘‘The trolley is an open-air trolley,” explains Britta Monaco, director of communications for the City of Gaithersburg. ‘‘People might recognize it from our parades, when the mayor rides on it.

‘‘It’s an interesting opportunity to see the lights from a different perspective.”

Holiday magic

How’s this for perspective? The human race has been ‘‘celebrating the holidays” since civilization was in its cradle. The Mesopotamians called their 12-day New Year festival ‘‘Zagmuk” — good luck constructing carols around that — and the Persians and Babylonians had Sacaea. The Greeks marked the battle of Zeus versus Kronos; the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, the Scandinavians did their thing at Yuletide – and the Christians, according to legend, were determined to paper over pagan ways, substituting the celebration of the birth of Christ for all things polytheistic.

In the modern American melting pot, a secular holiday display like the Winter Lights Festival lets people of all ethnicities and religious affiliations enjoy the festivities.

‘‘I think a lot of it is nostalgia,” says Elizabeth Poole, a recreation programs supervisor for the City of Gaithersburg, where she has worked for 21 years. ‘‘People come here and say, ‘Oh, I remember the neighborhood would be all decorated and we’d go and see the lights.’

‘‘Families come together – it’s magical.”

And in a sense, Poole is the architect of that magic – the one who saw a West Virginia light display 14 years ago and decided it would be a perfect fit for her native Gaithersburg.

‘‘We did a very small display at Summit Hall Farm Park,” says Poole, who holds a bachelor of science degree in recreation – really! – from Frostburg State University. ‘‘It was popular, and we decided to do it again.”

After three years at Summit Hall, the decision was made to move the festival to Seneca Creek.

‘‘It was a hard sell,” Poole admits, looking back. ‘‘There was a lot of money, capital, that had to be set aside – and we didn’t know if it would fly.”

Reindeer Games

Winter Woods. Teddy Bear Land. Victorian Village. The North Pole. These are the vistas of the Winter Lights Festival at Seneca Creek State Park.

‘‘It’s a darn good thing they’re not the kind of lights where one goes out and then none of them will light,” laughs Monaco. She says the hundreds-of-thousands of bulb, 400 extension-cord installation, which began Oct. 1, ‘‘takes six to eight staff members 1,630 man-hours to install.”

Dismantling the project takes less than half the time — but isn’t that always the case.

‘‘A lot of times, they’re constructing the framework,” says Monaco. ‘‘They work with a light display company based in North Carolina; some displays are custom made, some come prefabricated.”

One that’s new this year is ‘‘Reindeer flight school,” a 41-foot high tableau featuring ruminants-in-training, complete with parachutes and (one might imagine) shaky hooves.

With a 90-acre lake that’s perfect for fishing and boating; biking and hiking trails, championship disc golf course and adventure playground for the kids made of recycled material, Seneca Creek is ideal for spring, summer and fall fun. But the Winter Lights Festival means use of the park skyrockets: Last year, on Dec. 23, 19,000 vehicles motored through.

Poole remembers how, a decade ago, ‘‘we had to get permission from the park.

‘‘They thought it was a great idea; the park was not filled to capacity.”

It is now, of course, and Poole and the team are acutely aware of the environmental concerns.

‘‘When you have an outdoor festival, you have trash, you have waste,” she acknowledges. ‘‘But I don’t think we add to Seneca Creek’s woes as far as that goes. Awareness of the park has grown, so it’s of benefit to them.”

Bright sparks

There’s a lot more to the City of Gaithersburg’s Winter Lights Festival than just having a good time. In this case, all that glitters is golden to local charities that benefit from the event: the American Red Cross, the Friends of Seneca Creek State Park, the Friends of Wells⁄Robertson House, the Gaithersburg Community Volunteer Soup Kitchen, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the Upper Montgomery Assistance Network.

‘‘From the start, we’ve always donated proceeds to charity,” says Poole. ‘‘It’s nice for us, and it’s nice for the community.”

Also nice: the team that keeps the lights burning brightly year after year.

‘‘We have an outstanding crew,” Poole notes. ‘‘They’re creative, they’re innovative. They take pride in being part of the show.”

And being part of the audience, she cautions, comes with certain do’s and don’ts. Number one?

‘‘Do not get out of your car!” she sighs. ‘‘People want to get a picture next to a display, but there are wires.” Poole herself has tripped, she says, and ‘‘we don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Other tips include picking the right time to go. Poole suggests weeknights before Dec. 15 because they tend to be less crowded.

‘‘On our busiest nights, we’ve had people waiting two hours,” she says, so if you come at the height of things after Dec. 18, make sure everyone’s been fed and visited the lavatory. There are festival games to play, too, from trivia to the ‘‘Bright Lights, Big Money” game where visitors find a word spelled out in the lights, write it down and submit it for a drawing.

A lot to enjoy, and Poole is first in line to savor all of it.

‘‘I’m one of those people who think it’s wonderful,” she admits with a giggle. ‘‘If you live in Gaithersburg and haven’t come out to see it, you’re missing something!”

The City of Gaithersburg’s Winter Lights Festival runs through Dec. 31 in Seneca Creek State Park, 11950 Clopper Road, Gaithersburg. Hours are Sunday through Thursday, 6 to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, 6 to 10 p.m. The festival is closed on Dec. 25. Admission is $10 per car Sunday through Thursday, $12 per car Friday and Saturday. Two dollar discount coupons, valid Monday through Thursday only, are available at nearby Lakeforest Shopping Center. Group admission rates are $25 for 15-passenger vans and $50 for buses. Open trolley rides through the festival are available on Dec. 5 and 12 at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. The fee is $5 per person and advance ticket purchase is required. Call 301-258-6350 or visit www.gaithersburgmd.gov⁄winterlights.