Behind this yard of inflatables is couple with boundless Christmas spirit

Santa Claus in a bathtub, scrubbing his back.

Santa cheerfully offering a holiday greeting by mooning his viewers.

Santa with his arms outstretched.

St. Nick with a beard that’s soft to the touch and a satiny robe.

Two St. Bernards, puffy stand-ins for the real dogs who live there.

Angels.

Christmas trees.

The Grinch after his heart operation.

Cellophane-covered lollipops.

Handmade light boards featuring lightbulbs with mouths that sync to the music wafting over the street.

More than 140 inflatable holiday figures and other decorations cover John and Katie Myers’ yard in front of their duplex, spill over onto the lawn of the house’s other half and even have set up residence at the duplex next door. If Clark Griswold had turned to inflatables instead of 25,000 twinkling lights, this is what his home would look like.

But while Griswold of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” decorated his house determined to have a “fun, old-fashioned family Christmas,” that’s not what motivates the Myerses. They’re doing this for others. The holiday display at 27th Street and Hawthorne Avenue dazzles the eye and warms the heart,  but it’s only — truly — a small bit of the the couple’s commitment to making Christmas merry and bright.

Next to a pail of free candy canes, they have set up a small mailbox in front of the steps leading to their house. There, children can post letters to Santa Claus. When they do, if there is any identification on the envelope, John Myers will go to any lengths to make sure said child receives a handwritten letter in return.

Last year, that meant replying to 216 letters. He even drove to Watertown on Christmas Eve to make sure a letter that had arrived Dec. 23 got a response in time.

John also has canceled his own Christmas Eve celebrations so he could go from house to house, dressed in red and sporting a beard. He then delivers small gifts to the young believers. This year, he’s cutting back on that. Instead, he’s making sure the children who visit his display Sunday evening, the same night his neighborhood offers Luminary Lane at the curbs, get a little something. He has purchased glow-in-the-dark necklaces and rings and created stickers to give out.

John and Katie also will — if the prairie winds cooperate — set up a tent and offer free hot chocolate. John has built a Plinko board, similar to the one seen on the TV show “The Price is Right,” for children to play and win prizes. The couple will hand out gift cards at random.

And while last year they received a few donations from people who wanted to show their thanks, essentially they fund this extravaganza themselves.

“We’re not rich, and we can’t give a lot of money out, but this is one way we can give to the community,” John said.

The couple have been married since 2012 and moved to their current address in 2015. They work at Lumen, a multinational technology company. Both took advanced studies in computers, and that skill makes some of their displays possible.

Take the handmade light boards. First, they map out the design on paper, using a specially designed tool to ensure each hole for the Christmas lights is 11/16ths of an inch apart. That design is transferred to a sheet of corrugated plastic, and the drilling begins. The numerous strings of lights are fixed in the house, outlining the design. The board also is set into a frame.

The final touch: syncing the singing “mouths” in time with the dozen or so Christmas carols that will play throughout the evening.

To do that, John sits in front of a mirror, singing the verses and making note of how his mouth purses or widens for each word. That part alone takes 20 hours, he said.

John and Katie learned shortly after they met how important Christmas was to the other, but Katie credits John with the vision behind their current display. However, she too is outside every night, making sure the inflatables lift as the fans pour air inside. She sets up the display, helping bring in more than 100 plastic storage tubs from a rental garage in Harrisburg. She helps come up with the ideas and will be there to take things down when the lights finally must be extinguished and the last inflatable collapses into a saggy pile of nylon.

Her reward?

“The smiles on people’s faces,” said Katie, a Canton native. “We don’t get to smile enough. But I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t for John.”

Why does John do it?

“It’s a lot to do with the reason we’re here, I guess,” he said. “Jesus was born. But I don’t make that a big thing. Everyone has different beliefs.”

John, who grew up in Fargo, said he didn’t really go all out on Christmas until a few years ago. He started with one inflatable and then bought and was given more. Last year, when the couple planned a trip to Florida, he mapped their route so he could pick up new inflatables along the way. That meant a stop in Kentucky, a stop in Tennessee, a stop in Georgia.

“It took us 42 hours to get to Florida,” John said sheepishly. “It should only take 22. But we ended up with 40 new inflatables.”

John seeks out inflatables throughout the year. He also can be found preparing display items. He made the lollipops himself, winding pool noodles into spirals, securing them with tape and then adding the sucker “sticks” and cellophane wrapping.

Now through Christmas, he also keeps busy adding inflatables to freshen the display, making repairs — wind is particularly hard on the lollipops — and frequent trips to the gas station. The inflatables operate on a generator that takes $30 worth of gasoline a night. Three extension cords are attached to the generator, with three more coming from the house. Dozens of additional cords snake around the yard, powering the inflatables.

“Katie’s really good about handling the organizing,” John said. “She handles the untangling. We started decorating Dec. 1, and it will stay up until Christmas Day for sure and maybe New Year’s.”

The Myerses set up a Facebook page, Myers X-mas Party, and use it to alert people when weather conditions are unfavorable. The inflatables, lights and music run from 6 to 9:30 p.m.

Dennis “DW” Rooney lives in a duplex just north of the couple’s home. His wife, Nancy, died Oct. 13, after 33 years officially married and seven years before that as a “hitched” couple. Despite putting up Christmas decorations in his home, the musician and Vietnam War veteran approached the holidays with a dismal attitude.

Looking out his windows at the inflatables helps lift his spirits. Nancy had liked a Christmas tree she had seen in the Myerses’ yard last year, and the couple made sure to put it right outside Rooney’s front window. They also have a moving carousel inflatable, and that brings a special warmth to Rooney’s heart.

Nancy collected carousels and carousel horses, he said, and had amassed more than 175 of them.

“Nancy would have loved that carousel,” he said of the inflatable.

The display also reminds Rooney of his boyhood in California. A man had removed the grass from his yard, replacing it with desert sand. Every year, he would set up mobile displays of Santa Claus in his workshop for people to enjoy.

“It takes me back to California,” Rooney said.

The Myerses want to make sure others have similar memories. When they’re not busy outside ensuring everything is in place, they can watch inside from an eight-camera security system as the cars slow down and pull over and the pedestrians “ooh” and “aah” from the sidewalks.

Angie Hilton surprised Eric, her 5-year-old, with a drive past the inflatables earlier this week. Peering through a back-seat window, Eric chose a reindeer with a bobbing head — actually a moose, but you have to get close to see the difference — as his favorite.

Valerie Belding lives across Hawthorne Avenue from the display. This is her first Christmas in her new home, and she hasn’t had time to put up lights herself. Instead, she basks in the literal glow of the inflatables.

“I tell my friends I feel bad this year because I didn’t get Christmas lights out,” Belding said. “This gets me in the spirit.”

Her favorite: the 15-foot-tall Rudolph, standing next to Eric’s moose. That happens to be the first inflatable the couple purchased. Among the skills they have learned since diving deep into inflatables is how to patch the occasional rip, caused by ice or other unpleasantness. Rudolph has several patches, and his neck has developed a kink. John also made him “crutches” out of PVC pipe.

That’s why John said this will be Rudolph’s last year. He has another inflatable Rudolph picked out and will make payments over several months before the reindeer arrives at his doorstep. The original Rudolph will not be discarded, however.

“I’m still going to keep him,” John said. “I’ll find a place for him.”

Luminary Lane

Take in one of the city’s oldest traditions on Sunday, Dec. 19, as homeowners line their neighborhood with lighted candles in paper bags. Drive through or walk the area from 22nd to 26th streets between Western and Hawthorne avenues beginning at dusk.

John and Katie Myers will hold special events during Luminary Lane, and their yard display celebration will be open daily from 6 to 9:30 p.m. at least through Christmas Day.