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(L) Even the kids pitch in to get Yucaipa Christmas underway. (R) The Christmas "juice." a part of people's holiday season," Zrolyks said. Zrolyks, Maxey, and their neighbors hope to create one more holiday tradition. Every year on the Saturday before Christmas, the street has a Christmas party that the whole town is invited to! The families who live there will be handing out free cookies and hot chocolate. "Even our friend Santa will be making a special appearance," said Zrolyks with a smile. "He will be available to take pictures with and later, her will be handing out presents to the kids." Santa will be arriving at 7 pm and people are welcome to come down anytime before and after that during the evening. Everyone involved in the light show hopes to have 12 songs programmed this year, but they don't run them all in a row. They will play a few songs, and then have a 30-second break. "We want people to watch a couple of songs and then leave," said Zrolyks. Otherwise people would stay for an hour and no one else would get a chance to watch. This year they are going to try a new way to have less traffic. "Although we want to keep the neighborhood quiet, we are going to try and place one speaker in front of each house playing the music very softly," Zrolyks commented. This way people can walk to and around the show and still enjoy it. Zrolyks said traffic does get really bad the closer it gets to Christmas. He said it's easier with more houses involved because if they're in the light show, they understand about the traffic. "We have made professional signs asking people to respect our neighbors and don't block them into their driveways," said Zrolyks. This is important in order to let the show go on. The show actually adds little cost to our electric bill. With 14 houses each individual house's lights only come on sporadically, so the electric cost as much as anyone else's house with lights. "When my house was the only one involved, it added, at the highest, $150 onto my electric bill. So it's nice to share the cost with my neighbors now," Zrolyks said. The street started setting up their lights during last weekends of November. It takes about two weeks to get all the lights up. One neighbor involved in the light show will be moving in late November. "The new tenants understand how important the show is to our neighborhood. So as soon as they move in we will start putting the lights up," said Zrolyks, sounding a little stressed. They would be unable to put all of their extravagant lights, without the generous donation by Sunstate Equipment located in Yucaipa. "We use a 45-foot articulated lift, so all of the neighbors stay safe. What would normally cost us over $600, we get for free and we would all like to thank them for it," Zrolyks said. The show will start Fri., Dec., 6 and run through Jan. 1. The show begins as soon as it gets dark. On weekdays the show will end at 9 pm and on Friday and Saturday, and the entire week before Christmas, it will end at 10 pm. OUR YUCAIPA | December 2013 11

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