Couple wants everyone to see the lights for Christmas

When Dorian and Monica Taft were house hunting last year, they had just one requirement – the neighbors had to have a zeal for Christmas decorating.

The retired couple left their home in Hilton Head because some residents in their age-restricted community took issue with their Christmas lights display. They relocated to Matthews, N.C., for two years before settling in the Panhandle.

When they toured the model in the Shelly Woods subdivision off Shelly Mullis Road in Indian Land, Dorian stopped two women out for a walk to ask them about the neighborhood. They told him the people there were friendly.

But what he really wanted to know was, “How does the neighborhood handle Christmas?”

“Oh honey, you can’t hold a candle to these boys,” one woman said of the neighbors’ decorating enthusiasm.

Challenge accepted.

“Buy the house,” Dorian told his wife.

They moved into 1206 Shelly Woods Drive in August 2014.

A few neighbors at the front of the subdivision rent a cherry picker and help each other put up decorations the day after Thanksgiving, Dorian said.

“It’s a wonderful community,” Monica said.

The Tafts have been married 24 years and have two grown sons and a golden retriever named Ruby. They thought they wanted a ranch style home, but soon discovered there would not be enough room to store their decorations. They bought a two-story and looked into adding a third garage onto the house.

When they found out the cost, they settled on adding additional attic space and shelving and a ladder through the garage to help with accessibility. The Tafts say the additions, which cost a few thousand dollars, were worth the expense.

For Dorian, decorating is an art form. He begins the first week of November, to ensure he has plenty of time to enjoy the experience and ensure everything meets his standards.

“It has to be up before Thanksgiving,” Dorian said. The lights go on at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving night.

Decorating can be perilous, too. Dorian has broken more ladders than he can count, and has “fallen off of every roof we’ve owned,” his wife says.

“Not true,” he said.

“It’s true,” she said.

The Tafts have four themes through which they rotate their display. This year is Santa, Candy Canes and Nutcrackers. They also have Winter Wonderland, Snowmen and Angels and Nativity themes.

“I don’t just throw up thousands of lights,” Dorian said. “I like to stick within the theme.”

Dorian is always looking for new places to buy the “newest, greatest and latest,” Christmas items. This year, the Tafts read about the York County Humane Society’s Christmas Shop in the Fort Mill Times and called the store in advance of its opening to ask if they would have any yard art for sale. Shop organizers told them to come on opening day.

“As fast as they unloaded it, we bought it,” Dorian said. Shop organizers wondered if they would have enough room in their car for all their purchases, he said.

“The hard top convertible, the top goes down, we can keep piling it on,” Dorian told them.

“He loves animals and we’ve always supported the humane societies wherever we’ve lived,” Monica said.

At one point in her life, Monica said she was a single mother with two young boys doing the best she could.

“I would duct tape Christmas lights around the door,” she said.

Then she met Dorian – who even as a bachelor had a dining room table with eight place settings of Christmas china – and he helped her decorate her home.

The two married and Dorian and the boys, now 33 and 35, would “put on these elaborate productions,” for Christmas, Monica said.

“Christmas time to (our sons) is still a magical time because of what dad taught them about Christmas,” she said.

Dorian has been captivated by the wonder of Christmas since he was a young boy, and while he can’t quite put his finger on it, he thinks it started with a trip to a department store with his mother, riding up the elevator and seeing the store decked out for the holiday.

“Everything was Christmas,” he said.

Dorian said his family was not able to decorate their home for Christmas when he was growing up.

“We were too poor,” he said. “When I was a kid, we would jump in the car and go see the Christmas lights. The good thing about it is it’s free. It’s becoming harder and harder to find things to do that are free.”

Now Dorian gets a twinkle in his eye when he talks about the children who come to see the lights.

He also plays Santa for the kids in the neighborhood.

Dorian remembers one year a little girl was too shy to talk to Santa, so she wrote out her Christmas list and gave it to him. He still has it, tucked away in a special box.

Neighbors stop to tell them how delighted they are by their display, the Tafts said.

“Their 3-year-old has to come by every night to see ‘the candy cane house,’” Monica said of one family.

The Tafts also have themes for Halloween decorating. “This year was spiders,” Dorian said.

Next year he plans to use reverse window projections for the Oct. 31 holiday. “I’m upping the game,” Dorian said.

But the Christmas season – and decorating – is what he holds most dear. “It’s...a labor of love,” Dorian said.

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Couple wants everyone to see the lights for Christmas."