It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in one Santee neighborhood, and residents hope this year’s celebration will be smoother than ones in the past.
Thousands of people drive or walk through the neighborhood known as Starlight Circle each December to enjoy the lights, inflatables and other displays along West Glendon and East Glendon circles.
Vehicles often back up on Magnolia Avenue leading to the entrance, and the city has taken several steps in recent years to help with traffic flow and keep the area clean. Even more changes are happening this year.
The morning after Thanksgiving, Rob Zabrowski was among the neighbors setting up displays.
“I had an idea what it would be like,” said Zabrowski, who moved to the neighborhood five years ago. “But I had no idea how much we’d be into it. The first year we did it, we thought we did a lot of stuff. But every year we found more and more places to put things.”
Zabrowski’s front yard fence has a festive Christmas train on its railing and a sign reading “Welcome to Starlight Circle” to greet guests arriving through Tomel Court.
That short street has caused some big problem for the neighborhood, but Zabrowski said the city has helped find solutions to ease traffic.
Last year, the city posted no-parking signs on Tomel Court to help traffic flow through the main entrance into Starlight Circle. A few years ago, traffic was so backed up there was a 2 1/2-hour wait on Magnolia Avenue, Zabrowski said.
This year, neighbors say they hope traffic will be even smoother when the city begins enforcing rules prohibiting vendors from setting up stands on Tomel Court to sell bacon-wrapped hot dogs and elote, Mexican street corn.
“They would set up right on the sidewalk and block the sidewalk and take up large chunks of the street,” said Travis Enslow, who lives next to the Zabrowskis. “It was an issue.”
Vendors still will be allowed in the neighborhood, but a rule requiring them to be mobile will be enforced. Enslow said he has seen a few fender-benders in his four years in the neighborhood.
City officials last year also worked with the neighborhood and Santana High School to provide free parking and portable toilets in the school’s parking lot.
Trash on the street also isn’t as bad as it used to be since Waste Management agreed to place bins throughout the neighborhood for pedestrians to use.
“The city has been helping since I moved in, and I would use ‘helping’ as a very vague term because the neighborhood is very sensitive to how much involvement the city has,” Enslow said.
In October, the Santee City Council approved an ordinance that allows the city manager to declare and enforce rules and regulations on privately sponsored events that affect city functions, which allows the city to deploy resources to protect the public health, safety and welfare of people during the event.
At the same time, city officials also stressed that they did not want to overstep their authority and recognized that Starlight Circle is a neighborhood event that is not city-sponsored.
John Shadwell, who lives across the street from Enslow, is one of the original homeowners in the neighborhood, moving in just after the development opened in 1984.
He recalled his son Roger, about 7 at the time, and a friend set up a hot cocoa stand during their first Christmas season when only a few neighbors had decorations.
“A lady from somewhere in La Jolla came through in a limousine and pulled out a $100 bill to give them,” Shadwell said.
The boys were overcome with joy, and the next year the family began decorating more. Neighbors soon joined in, and by the early 1990s, Starlight Circle had become an attraction.
Participating in the displays can be costly. Enslow invested about $2,000 in wood and art to create the original campground-theme displays in his yard, which he adds to every year, and Jennifer Zabrowski said the family invests $500 to $1,000 in new displays or replacements annually.
Down the street, Christina Wood’s front lawn was completely covered by a white tarp, and a towering Santa Claus and other figures were ready to greet visitors.
“We still have a lot more to go,” she said, adding that her husband begins buying decorations in August. She doesn’t see the new ones until they come out in December, and he doesn’t mention how much he’s spent on them.
Wood said they used to have light decorations when they lived in another neighborhood seven years ago, but she got inspired to do more for children because of a comment from a 5-year-old girl.
“She said, ‘Oh, it’s so pretty. Can you do more?’” Wood said. “That’s how it started.”
