Toledo Christmas Lights Tour, Window Display Illuminate Possibilities for Optimistic Town

Christmas light displays popping up around the town of Toledo aren't just a festive way to celebrate the season.

To Mike and Di Morgan, they're also another light leading the South Lewis County town out of some of its darkest days.

This is the second year in a row Vision:TOLEDO has sponsored a holiday lights contest for the greater Toledo area. Participants need only turn their names in and then decorate their homes. They will be vying not only for the title of best holiday lights, but also gift certificates to local businesses.

Mike Morgan, who owns Morgan Arts Centre with his wife, Di, said the idea of a holiday lights contest seemed like a great way to get community members more involved in their town. The primary goal of Vision:TOLEDO is to enhance the quality of life in the Toledo area.

“Our focus is to do things that will enhance the businesses environment and the look of the town,” he said.

Vision:TOLEDO paid for half of each of the gift certificates that will given away as prizes. Vision:TOLEDO's biggest fund-raiser for the year is a wine and cheese tasting event at the annual Cheese Days celebration.

“But we're not trying to make money and keep it. We make money and we give it away,” Mike Morgan explained.

Last year's inaugural holiday lights contest drew 17 entries. More exciting was the community participation for the event, Mike Morgan said. On the night of the judging, those who want to help can show up at the high school and board a bus to be taken around to the houses. If the bus is full, participants can also follow in their own vehicles. Di Morgan said last year there was a bus full of judges and three cars following

“This is one of those things we love about this town,” Mike Morgan said.

Another way to ring in the Christmas season is a special window display at the gallery titled “A Child's Dream of Christmas” that was created by Portland-based film director and artist Chel White and produced by Laura McGie. Mike Morgan and Kendall Richardson, of Richardson Construction, also assisted in the creation.

The display was the brainchild of Mike Morgan, who thought it would be interesting to see what the reaction would be to a New York-style window display in the tiny town of Toledo.

The window display, which is lit from dusk until midnight, has elements that may seem familiar to some viewers.

There’s a reason for that.

The hills, in the style of the classic “Rudolph” movies, is from a current AT&T commercial; the felt and sugar trees were seen in “Jingle All the Way,” the Hallmark Channel's first-ever stop-motion animated holiday movie. The moon face is from an HBO children's show. A white deer and boy were designed specifically for the project.

“It's like looking into the mind of a child to witness a magical Christmas dream,” White wrote of his creation. “For me, it captures a sense of spirituality, mystery in nature and most of all, imagination. That is my intention but ultimately it's one of those things that anyone who sees it should interpret in their own way.”

But Christmas hasn't always been a good time of year for Toledo. Anyone who has ever visited Cheese Days knows that the heyday of industry in Toledo was in the 1950s. More recently, the sleepy town of about 700 people had struggled to find an identity and jobs to keep young people there

“There wasn't much enthusiasm around here,” Mike Morgan said.

In 2010, several downtown businesses had closed, leaving the main street through Toledo looking fairly bleak. Then a devastating fire on Christmas day 2010 really became the catalyst to change. Following the destruction, a town meeting was held that drew about 200 people.

“They were all saying 'let's do something,'” Mike Morgan recalled.

Vision:TOLEDO was founded in 2011 with the intention of taking that will for change and making something meaningful out of it.

Now, a town meeting is held once a year where all 4,000 or so residents in the greater Toledo area (the Morgans explained that encompasses the Toledo ZIP code, phone numbers beginning with 864 and residences within the school district boundaries) are invited to have a say on what is happening in Toledo.

In recent years, Toledo has become something of a bedroom community, meaning that many of its residents work outside of town and many more still do their shopping outside of town. Providing needed services is just one way Vision:TOLEDO is trying to reconnect people with their town.

Di Morgan said driving around and looking at neighbors' light displays might seem like a small thing, but it can make a big difference in how people feel about the place they live. Vision:TOLEDO was even intentional in offering prizes of gift certificates to local businesses to entice people to see what their own town has to offer.

“If you get all your needs elsewhere, you don't ever have to go into town and you don't ever need this community and if you don't use it, you will lose it,” Di Morgan said.

In recent years, Vision:TOLEDO has seen several successes in its efforts. Recently, the eagle sculpture from the Gospodor Monument was relocated to the town, a new fish sculpture was added and a new town library was opened, featuring a Timberland Regional Library kiosk.

The Morgans said the next project will be turning a downtown alley into a dedicated pocket park called “Hop Alley” dedicated to the heritage of hop growing in the region as well as local hop king Herman Klaber, who went down on the Titanic

“It's having an effect,” Mike Morgan said. “People have the feeling things are looking up in Toledo.”