Toquerville • With a dark sky ordinance in place, this small southwest Utah town 24 miles northeast of St. George and its leaders would seem to take a dim view of glittery and sometimes gaudy light displays.

But that changes in December when, ordinance be damned, Toquerville city officials turn a blind eye to one and all who want to brighten up their homes and the night sky to celebrate Christmas.

In fact, city officials not only prefer to stay in the dark about dark sky violations during the holidays but sponsor a Christmas light contest that offers $150 to the winner. Decorators who take second and third place earn $75 and $50, respectively.

All throughout the town, on the main drag and smaller side streets, patches of red, blue, green and white lights sparkle like sapphires, rubies, emeralds and diamonds that complement the starry expanse of the desert night sky.

Still, former Toquerville Mayor Lynn Chamberlain, said the spike in light displays during Christmas owes more to communal spirit than cash.

“This is a small town where everybody knows and is friends with each other,” Chamberlain said. “Most people will decorate their house even though they know they are not going to win the award. They do it to celebrate the season because Christmas is important to them.”

Cash awards carry very little currency for couples Wayne and Caleen Olsen and Gary and Karlene Young, both of whom arguably have the burg’s brightest and most beautiful displays and have taken top honors in past Christmas light contests.

“They are excluding themselves from this year’s contest because they want to motivate and provide other residents with an opportunity to win,” Chamberlain said.

Wayne and Caleen Olsen

In talking about Christmas, Wayne and Caleen say Jesus is the light of the world. What better way to share that light, they ask, than stringing up thousands of lights to inspire and bring joy to others?

Despite Caleen’s desire to celebrate the season writ large, the couple started small. After they married in 1979, Caleen bought 500 lights that first Christmas — and she’s been buying more and stringing Wayne along ever since. Four-and-a-half decades later, their light collection numbers 100,000 or more and counting.

For his part, Wayne, who serves on the city council, is not overly amped about it.

“But if I don’t put up Christmas lights, I don’t eat,” the general contractor quipped.

In keeping with their desire to enlighten others, the Olsen’s Christmas lights are everywhere. They frame the house, festoon all their fences, reindeer and trees, and bathe Santa, elves, snowmen and ice-skating penguins in an iridescent glow that is visible more than a mile away.

For all the stars in the couple’s cast of characters, their pièce de résistance is the 45-foot-long Santa riding herd on his team of Rudolph and eight other reindeer. They purchased the piece, along with a 12-foot electronic waving Santa, at Christmas Done Bright.

Looming large in their annual Christmas decorating chores is the 65-foot-tall Mondell pine that Wayne scampers up each year to adorn with lights. Fortunately, he said, the tree has so many limbs it is like climbing a ladder, and he is fairly limber for a 66-year-old.

Not to be outdone, Caleen takes charge of decorating 15 more real trees and just as many artificial ones. There are also the Grinch, the abominable snowman and scores of other cutouts to erect. She gets the hand-painted decor from a friend in nearby Pintura in exchange for decking out the woman’s home for Christmas.

Indeed, gussying up the Olsen home and yard is a big responsibility.

Their display straddles several acres on both sides of 160 W. Old Church Road. Caleen’s sister, the couple’s daughter, several grandchildren and some youth from their church often help out. Typically, the Olsens begin decorating in mid-October and finish in the nick of time, just before the Dec. 1 debut of their display, which runs through the holidays.

Oh, deer!

Old hands as they are at decorating, each season brings new challenges. One is the wind, which sometimes snaps guy wires and topples displays. Another is the herd of real deer that often trod the grounds after lights out, tearing up wires, electric cords and lights.

“One time we put lights in a neighbor’s hedge and a buck got the lights caught in its antlers and walked down the street with them,” Caleen recalled.

As daunting as it is to buck such challenges, the Olsens attest the payoff more than makes up for the mishaps and miscues. Watching cars — 125 more on weeknights and up to 1,000 a night on weekends — parade by and listening to onlookers’ oohs and aahs more than compensates for the struggle.

“Our decorations bring people happiness, which is what our Heavenly Father wants,” Caleen said. “It is our way to celebrate the season and share the joy it brings with others.”

Gary and Karlene Young

Christmas this year represents a return to form for Gary and Karlene Young.

For the previous two Christmases, the sole decoration gracing the Youngs’ home at 460 N. Toquer Blvd was a Grinch lit by a single strand of forlorn-looking lights that their adult children strung up.

Still, the Grinch was not to blame for stealing one of Toquerville’s premier Christmas displays. Rather, it was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that called the Youngs to serve a mission in Independence, Missouri.

Now they have returned, the couple’s Christmas display is back and bigger than ever. And so are the cars that stream past their house along the busy thoroughfare that serves as the town’s main entrance. The glare of their lights is even visible from the air.

“My son used to point it out to his students when he was giving flying lessons,” Karlene said. “It’s also visible to people flying commercial aircraft.”

Chief among the Youngs’ Yuletide decor is the 28-foot-tall digital tree topped with a star and bedecked with lights that dance in synchronization with music listeners can tune in at 91.9 on the FM dial.

Putting up the tree was not a breeze for Gary, a retired general contractor. Within a few days of erecting the aluminum pole for the tree several years ago, high winds bent it in half. To remedy the problem, Gary put rebar in the pole and anchored it to the ground with guy wires.

The Youngs met at then-Dixie College in St. George years ago — and they’ve been an item ever since. Now married 48 years, the couple’s first foray into holiday lighting was more modest than majestic. Karlene would shop after-Christmas sales and stock up on lights.

The couple’s display began with 5,000 lights and now, 21 years later, numbers more than 75,000. Fortunately, their monthly electric bill, thanks to switching to LED lights, is trending in the opposite direction — from $500 to about $230.

Some of their decor comes from Home Depot, Ace Hardware and online suppliers. Much of it Gary makes by hand. For example, he has converted his grandpa’s 1940s-era tractor and manure spreader into Santa and his reindeer.

Miracle of Christmas

Another signature attraction is the pioneer handcart that the couple outfitted with a cardboard tube and transformed into a cannon, which is accompanied by nutcracker soldiers. Front and center, though, is the hand-crafted stable and nativity that now fronts the property and reminds visitors, in Gary’s words, of “Jesus’ miraculous birth and the reason for the season.”

Speaking of miracles, Gary’s knee surgery in October threatened to sideline him from this year’s Christmas chores.

“But within four weeks,” Karlene said, “he was puttering around in his mother’s electric wheelchair and helping out. Then he progressed to using a walker or a cane, and quickly got to the point he could walk without a cane. So it didn’t slow him down much.”

Ramping up or retirement?

Each year, the Youngs and Olsens face the daunting prospect of what they will do next year. As grateful as visitors tell them they are for what they have done, the couples are often asked what they plan to do to make their Christmas lights even better next year and how long they plan to carry on the tradition.

“We’ll keep going until we can’t keep going,” Gary, who is 71, tells them.

For their part, the Olsens are looking to pass the torch. Alas, Caleen lamented, her children just laugh at her when she talks to them about taking over.

Asked about his future plans, Wayne sums it up in one word: “retirement.”