by Kevin Cummings, Messenger Staff Writer
Rosebushes are woven into the sprawling Noel vista, which is speckled with hundreds of glowing lights, all essentially powered by love.
Mary Elizabeth “Tibby” Tucker decorated the yard of her Kennerly Road home in grand fashion at least as far back as the early 1980s. Santas, camels, reindeer, wise men and snowmen populate the grass and still brighten the Sewanee night off Highway 41A.
A puddle of inflatable Santa lies at the foot of the porch waiting for the breath of life, as a jolly man steps from the door of the house wearing shorts and a black pullover, a rust-colored Chihuahua in his arms. Freddy Tucker instantly feels like a friend, and his joy about his candy cane-dappled yard is infectious.
After Tibby died in 2011 at age 85, he continues the decorating tradition as a testament of love to his mom and a gift to the community he holds dear.
“I miss my mom,” he says, “not just at Christmas, but the whole year. She started all this, and I just kept it going.”
Freddy, 51, unpacked the decorations the day after Thanksgiving, and with some help from his girlfriend, Gail Parsons, finished the yard in about two weeks.
Friend Robin Gottfried, executive director of Sewanee’s Center for Religion and Environment, grew up in a rural area of Maryland not far from Washington, D.C., where people prided themselves on their Christmas displays.
“Freddy’s yard brings back memories from when I was a kid, and it brings a lot of happiness to people,” Gottfried says. “It’s a great tradition that he feels strongly about. Freddy has a strong sense of community, and of sharing and giving for the community.”
Beneath a plywood manger, Joseph is cloaked in a faded turquoise robe and stands alongside Mary, chips of paint missing from her face as she cradles a gleeful baby Jesus in her arms.
Freddy says the nativity scenes were some of his mom’s favorites. Tibby worked for the University of the South for more than 50 years. In 2011, a few months before she died, their house burned, but the Christmas and Halloween decorations survived; they were stored in the basement as Sewanee Housing Inc. helped rebuild the home. Dixon Myers, coordinator of Sewanee’s Outreach Ministries, was part of the rebuilding.
“Frankenstein and the Virgin Mary were actually living together in the basement of the house, and Frosty the Snowman was down there with the mummy,” Myers says laughing.
Like Gottfried, the yard art takes Myers back to his childhood.
“It’s a really beautiful place, and everybody drives by there,” he says.
As three Santas, an angel, and a host of other characters stand sentinel along the edge of the road, Freddy laments that more people don’t decorate at Christmas.
“I think each person ought to at least put out one ornament, a tree, a light or something. Don’t you? People say these decorations mean Christmas to them,” he says, “and if it snows on them, boy do they get excited.”
Freddy’s home is located near the corner of Kennerly Avenue and Highway 41-A.
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