Passing the torch
Published 11:12 pm Thursday, December 22, 2005
It has been three years since Harold Swindle’s 300,000-plus Christmas light display lit up the night sky over the Simcoe community in northeast Cullman County.
Forced to end the 30-year-long display (28 years at the Swindle home on Alabama Highway 69 North) due to the failing health of his wife Ruby, who suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s, Swindle, now 82, did the next best thing — he gave thousands of his lights to his good friends and neighbors H.D. and Joyce McGriff.
The McGriff display isn’t as prolific as the renowned Simcoe Lights, which at their peak drew a steady stream of vehicles to the Swindle home, some from as far away as Georgia and Tennessee beginning on Thanksgiving night.
“We started putting up a few lights just before Mr. Swindle stopped turning his on. After he quit three years ago, he gave us a lot of his lights and we added them to what we had and it has gradually grown over the years,” H.D. McGriff said.
“I have no idea how many lights we have up. We’ve got them all over the house, yard and driveway. We’ve outlined our outbuildings and the fence that runs around our place and we have some other lighted displays around the exterior of the home and some lights up in the trees, but I don’t have to use a slingshot to get mine up like Mr. Swindle did,” McGriff said.
In those days, Swindle recalled, he’d spend roughly 10 months out of the year taking down and putting up lights.
He has a lot of fond memories of those years and the lights he hung at the request of his blind daughter, who wanted other children to enjoy what she was unable to see.
“Lord, I miss it,” Swindle said. “It doesn’t seem like Christmas without our lights.”
Occasionally, when it’s warm enough, Swindle says he will sit out on his porch and gaze at the McGriffs’ lights just down the road.
“That why I gave the lights to them, so they could be put up for the community to enjoy,” Swindle said. “That’s the only reason I did it for so many years. I just wish they had their driveway fixed to where folks to drive through and see the lights like they were able to do here.”
As for what he misses most about those days, Swindle said it would have to be meeting and talking to all the visitors who drove through or stopped and walked through a winter wonderland of lights.
“I miss seeing all the people drive through and I miss the look on the children’s faces,” Swindle said. “We had some good years doing that and I’ve got some wonderful memories of those days. I appreciate everyone who supported us over the years and we wish everyone a merry Christmas.”
While he has no plans to grow his Christmas light display to hundreds of thousands of lights, McGriff said he is proud of the fact that on a small scale he’s able to keep the Simcoe Lights tradition alive for the Swindles and the community.
“One reason I don’t want our display to get that big is because of the traffic problems it would cause, not to mention the work involved,” said McGriff, who has worked for more than 30 years at Cullman Regional Medical Center and for the past several years in the hospital’s maintenance department.
“When the Simcoe Lights were in their heyday we couldn’t even get out of our driveway here,” McGriff said. “When we first moved here I was driving an 18-wheeler and I’d always bring my truck home and park out here. There were times when I’d come in and I couldn’t even get off the highway to get in my driveway because the traffic coming from town would be backed up all the way past the Convent Camp on 69.”
McGriff said he’s proud of the few thousand lights currently on display.
“It certainly doesn’t compare to anything Mr. Swindle had, but we like it and the kids and grandkids like it,” McGriff said.
As proud as the McGriffs are of their exterior light display, they are equally proud of the Christmas knick-knacks Joyce McGriff has on display in the interior of their home — particularly in their 20 feet by 30 feet kitchen, which H.D. calls his wife’s “dream kitchen.”
To say Joyce McGriff’s country kitchen is a holiday delight for children age one to 92 is an understatement.
A visitor would be hard-pressed to find a six-square-inch space that isn’t adorned with a ceramic or stuffed snowman, a miniature Santa Claus, Christmas ornaments and lights, Christmas bears and place settings, candy canes and a miniature sleigh and reindeer.
“Welcome to Cracker Barrel,” H.D. can be heard saying whenever a visitor comes to the door. One look inside and you understand the greeting.
“I’ve always enjoyed collecting things and my mother was a collector,” Joyce McGriff said. “I collect cookie jars, old lunch boxes, miniature cows, coffee mugs, Beanie Babies, and anything with a holiday theme.”
A few years ago, Joyce McGriff began collecting snowmen in every shape, size and configuration imaginable.
H.D. McGriff said his wife never met a flea market she didn’t like. Joyce, meanwhile, says her husband has been known to bring a thing or two home from time to time like the old well bucket painted with a country scene that hangs from one of the tall rafters in the kitchen.
“I wanted me a well bucket like that one because when I was a boy at home we had one just like that,” H.D. McGriff said. “I’ve got a dipper hanging by the sink next to an old pump. There’s a wood stove over in the corner and some other odds and ends mixed in with the Christmas items.”
Small wonder whenever company or family come for a visit they prefer to congregate in the kitchen.
“Every holiday the dinner is here and the grandkids want Pawpaw to cook chicken and dressing for them,” H.D. McGriff said. “My wife and I grew up in homes where our parents went out of their way to make Christmas special and we do what we can to keep it special for our children and grandchildren.”
As festive as the McGriff’s kitchen is, H.D. says there is one item he would like to add in the next year or so — a train.
“I would like to run a train track around the top of the ceiling and run a Christmas train,” McGriff said. “And I’ll probably get around to do that, too one of these days.”