East Texas Christmas spirit sparks inspiration for journalist
It’s been a busy last few months of work, yet I still feel this lack of creativity in many of my stories. Not that all stories need to be some colorful, big production, but I’d like the viewer to want to watch, and I want to be proud of my work.
During what I guess you could call a slump, a college professor reached out to me and mentioned he’d come across a piece I’d done while working for our university newspaper. It was part of a spring story series some of the reporters were a part of. The challenge was to find a story, which you could argue really isn’t that much of a challenge, especially in a college town in the springtime. But it was more than that.
Embedded in this seemingly simple task were layers of creativity and intentionality. We were given a list of five challenges that helped guide the structure and content of the story. We drew slips of paper that gave us a location to find our story in, and from there we went off, mindful of these five guidelines which would come into play while writing the piece.
The inspiration came from a Washington Post reporter. In 1994, Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post asked his feature writers to do something similar. He sent four reporters in four directions surrounding the newspaper’s office in search of Christmas stories.
Each reporter was given a sealed envelope with five challenges. The series of stories was titled “A Perry White Christmas.”
“There was something messy and haphazard about that kind of journalism, but something good too,” Weingarten wrote in an introduction to the stories. “It was based on a principle often forgotten today, that the best stories lurk everywhere, not in choreographed events but on street corners and bar stools and everyday places plain people go about the excruciating, laughable, pitiful, glorious business of being human.”
After a brief exchange of Facebook messages, I quickly started trying to find what I did. I remembered it being in the campus quad, but that was it. I found it. I read it. And the saddest part, I almost didn’t recognize the writing. Television writing is a lot different than newspaper writing, they have their similarities, sure, but I feel like this piece sparked something in me. There’s still creativity to be sprinkled throughout stories, and I can go do that again.
So that’s what I did. I took my lunch break and spent it on the Downtown Tyler Square, just south of the entrance of our newsroom.
Here are the “rules” I set for myself:
First and last word of story have to be the same
First letters of three consecutive paragraphs need to spell JOY
Someone needs to reference snow
Describe the weather using a simile or metaphor
Use alliteration throughout story
Here’s what I came up with…
Here in East Texas there’s been no lag in urgency to get Christmas decorations up. About a week ago, even sooner on some properties, Christmas displays began going up. Bright, colorful lights strung on trees, with ornaments of all kinds have become the center pieces of windows throughout the city. Properties that may go unseen throughout the year are getting noticed as they showcase bright and cheery Christmas displays.
Lighting businesses have started putting their yard signs on corners around town, and most are in full-swing planning, prepping, and putting up lights now.
On Tyler’s Downtown Square, crews with ETX Lawn and Order can be seen on man lifts and ladders, hidden away in tree branches, weaving and wrapping lights around tree branches.
Their team has spent the past few weeks working on the city’s light display. Owner and installer Justin Carlson said they’re known as the Special Lighting Unit, come the holidays. He’s been doing lighting since he was a teenager, 17 years or so, and on the level they do it now, he said he’s been doing it for two years.
“We lived in the DFW Metroplex and real close to the airport. Once I kind of knew that I liked to do it, I just started building on it every year and then our entire roof was covered, just about every inch,” Carlson said. “I put a ten-foot Santa Claus on the roof and I always told my parents, since we’re so close to the airport… I still want people to look down and see this.”
Since winter time is slower for lawn businesses and Carlson loves doing Christmas lights, this just made sense to do.
The game plan for the Square was to do the easiest thing first. Carlson said they began with garland. A fairly simple task. They wrapped the greenery around light posts and measured to make sure it was spaced properly.
“We’re also lining all of these (grassy areas), you’ll see those bulbs there, that’s fairly easy because it can be done from the ground,” he said.
Just across the square from where Carlson is working, he’s got crew members on ladders working on more trees. He said the most difficult trees to get lights to adhere to are the Myrtle trees because their bark is so smooth.
“Obviously, the most labor intensive tasks are the trees. They take the longest and you have to have heavy machinery to do it,” Carlson said.
Yes, it’s been a tedious task, but the end result is something they are looking forward to.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how these trees turn out. One of the things we’re doing, I can’t tell you exactly where the placement is going to be because it’s going to be one of the last things we do, but we’re introducing a pretty cool, it’s new technology, it’s called an RGB dynamic, it’s a bench, it’s like a park bench but the whole thing lights up,” Carlson said.
Carlson said the bench runs 350 different color patterns and it’ll have a light post to go with it.
“It’s supposed to be like a picture scene. Especially when the families come down here and for the Christmas parade, they can go get their pictures taken on that bench, there will be a hashtag associated with it, they can hashtag and tag the city,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing how that plays out and then seeing all the different family pictures, and couples, and stuff like that.”
Boxes of supplies are scattered, a cool wind whispers like a flute throughout the square and the sunny spots provide a bit of warmth for onlookers.
Carlson said it’s been like piecing a puzzle together. As sections get completed, they light them up. They’ve been working a lot during the day, but as their Dec. 1 deadline approaches they’ll be working into the evenings too.
“We have them lit during the day, that way we’re testing it as we go, that way we don’t put it all up and then we have problems. So it kind of looks half done,” Carlson said. “It’s a lot different when you’re putting this stuff up during the day and then when you light it up at night to make sure everything is lined up perfectly and spaced perfectly, you have to be able to see that at night.”
Christmas is Carlson’s favorite holiday. He said he enjoys the time with family, staying in, bundled up by the fire with his boys.
“‘Home Alone’ is my favorite Christmas movie, Home Alone 1 and two. My boys, even as young as they are, they also love those movies,” he said. “We’ve already watched it twice this season.”
This is also the season snow could make its way to East Texas and Carlson said he’d take that over the Texas heat.
“We love snow, we don’t get too much of it around here,” he said. “I love the cold over the heat. This summer was brutal and if it snowed everyday, I would take that over what we experienced this summer, if we’re being honest.”
Carlson anticipates this display will be up through New Years.
“January is going to be a long month. It looks pretty but it’s all gotta come down. At some point, I would say mid-January, you’ll see us back out here packing all this stuff down and putting it in the city warehouse until next year,” he said.
But for now the festive light display is almost complete and ready for Tyler and East Texas to enjoy. Christmas time is here.
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