Christmas Circle is lighting up Chula Vista with some of the brightest homegrown holiday displays in San Diego County.
The tradition dates back almost 60 years and it grows every winter, now with animatronics, inflatables and thousands of colorful lights.
“It’s been going for 58 years and I think that’s really amazing,” said Judith Sullivan, a local resident who has been decorating her home on Christmas Circle since she was 8 years old. Her family was one of the original families to decorate.
Back then there was not much variety of outdoor decorations so the first year of Christmas Circle was really just lights and tinsel strung tree-to-tree and a few spotlights, said Sullivan. “And it just got bigger and bigger over the years.”
The circle at Whitney and Mankato streets is free to the public and attracts about 56,000 cars each year. Through Dec. 26 residents are welcome to walk or drive the circle located between First and Second avenues, south of H Street.
“It’s one of the few things you can still bring the kids to for free and nobody on the circle has ever made any money from it,” Sullivan said. “The best part of it is the neighbors all come out and we all decorate and help each other out.”
Sullivan is not alone, as four of the original families from 58 years ago still live and participate in Christmas Circle every year.
The recent introduction of lightweight inflatable decorations has made the decorating bigger and easier for residents while LED lights are more efficient than the lights of Christmas past.
Updates to decorations have only made the tradition stronger as third and fourth generation decorators continue to carry the torch on Christmas Circle, hosting and funding one of the South Bay’s oldest Christmas traditions from their own pockets.
“It’s not the old-timers who are keeping it going. It’s the young people who bring new enthusiasm to it who are keeping it alive,” Sullivan said, adding, “It just happens that I’m the oldest. Isn’t that a joy?”
From setting up to cleaning up and dealing with residential traffic jams, the residents at Christmas Circle take the good with the bad and accept it all as part of the holiday season.
“We could complain that the traffic is a nuisance,” Sullivan said. “But we love to have everybody. And people come to us and thank us, even the little, little kids. That’s why we do it.”
