Lack of 'Christmas Spirit' Ends Display
 
Dec 23, 9:38 AM (ET)

By LAURA WALSH 
 
KILLINGLY, Conn. (AP) - Christmas just isn't the same
for this small eastern Connecticut town that was once
set aglow during the holidays by one man and his
spirit.

Mervin Whipple, known as "Mr. Christmas" to the people
of Killingly, has decided to pull the plug on his
brilliant, gigantic holiday light display. There will
be no lights this year.

Partly, it was the pricey bills. But mostly, there
just isn't enough Christmas spirit, the once-jolly
Whipple said.

"It's a changed world," Whipple said while fighting
back tears. "The spirit of Christmas is gone."

Whipple had threatened to close down the display in
recent years. But now he says it's official: Whipple's
Christmas Wonderland is no more.

More than 1.5 million people from across the country
visited the display over its 35-year run. Decorated
with 110,000 bright lights and 300 moving figures,
including everything from Santa Claus to life-size
angels, Whipple's home was a holiday tradition and a
Connecticut landmark.

"He's our Father of Christmas," said Killingly
resident Bethany Milardo, 29, who had visited the
display every year for as long as she could remember.
"I have never, ever seen anything like it before, and
I doubt I will ever find anything that tops it."

Whipple said volunteers began to dwindle over the past
few years, and the bill - $19,000 last year - had
grown too costly.

"Help was becoming far and few between and I kept
getting bigger and bigger," he said. "I just couldn't
keep up anymore."

Whipple said charging visitors to see his display was
simply out of the question, even if it meant saving
his Christmas Wonderland.

"No way," he said. "I made a vow 35 years ago that I
would never charge anyone one penny and I never did."

Although he did have a small donation box stowed away
in the corner of his showroom, it remained virtually
empty over the years. In 2001, Whipple said the first
two days' donations brought in less than half a cent
per person.

Whipple said he had hoped the town would purchase his
Winter Wonderland and put it on display in Killingly's
Owen Bell Park. He even offered it to town officials
for the discounted price of $200,000. Whipple said the
Disney-like display costs more than $1 million.

But Acting Town Manager Peter Curry said Killingly
could not afford it.

"It just isn't something the town could shoulder,"
Curry said. "We are certainly going to miss it
though."

Whipple's Christmas Wonderland opened in 1967 with a
nativity scene and 225 lights as a tribute to his
stepson Edmond, who died in an accident the year
before at the age of 20. Before Edmond died, Whipple
had promised to help him decorate the home for the
holiday.

"It never became a reality for him so I decided to
carry it on myself," Whipple said.

Whipple owns a gravestone business and is the town's
cemetery superintendent, a profession he inherited
from his father. He is also a justice of peace who has
married more than 1,500 couples.

For Craig Griffin, 33, of Killingly, who had been
Whipple's right-hand man for 16 years, it feels
strange not to begin the holidays in September, when
the pair usually began setting up the display. It
would take another two or three months just to take it
all down.

"Things used to be a lot simpler," Griffin said. "The
expectations kept growing. It used to be a lot easier
to amuse people."

Since Whipple put his Christmas Wonderland on sale in
January, he has received seven offers from people in
Rhode Island and New York and as far away as Utah and
Oklahoma. But nothing has really stuck, he said. Part
of the problem is that Whipple refuses to disassemble
his display. It's all or nothing, he said.

"I don't want to sell the seven dwarfs without Snow
White," he said. "It wouldn't be the same. It would
spoil it." 

(See earlier related article)