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Dunkin’s display of holiday lights, which he’s been putting up each year for two decades, includes a sleigh that soars high above his home at 6615 Miner Drive S.W.
“Each year it gets bigger,” said his daughter Ashley Dunkin. “We always think there are enough lights, and then he’ll show up from the grocery store with boxes and boxes more.
“This year, he added 30 boxes of lights to it.”
The ever-growing display has been frequently included in The Olympian’s annual Tour of Lights, a reader-nominated roundup of some of the biggest and brightest holiday displays in South Sound.
And that inclusion is really important to him, Ashley Dunkin said.
“There was one year where we didn’t get the lights up in time,” she said. “We didn’t make the list, and he was so disappointed. Each year, he puts them up a little bit earlier.”
Typically, the Tour of Lights is an additional reason for Ken Dunkin to celebrate at his birthday party that begins after Christmas dinner.
“One year, he was number 17 on the list,” Ashley Dunkin said. “We even had on his birthday cake, ‘Happy birthday, number 17.’ ”
The Tour of Lights is not a competition, and the numbers are determined neither by which display is best or brightest – nor by when the chief illuminator has his or her birthday. But the spirit of competition seems to fuel participation in the sport of outdoor decoration nearly as much as the spirit of Christmas. (Imagine the reality show: “America’s Got Lights.”)
Steve Kelley, for example, was never that big on Christmas. “I remember years I didn’t even put up a Christmas tree,” he said.
So how is it that the glowing display at his home at 5410 66th Ave. N.W. in west Olympia has been growing and evolving for five or six years now, going from “a few strings of lights” to an extravaganza with a 17-foot-tall computerized tree and a carnival?
Part of it was the holiday spirit of his wife, Tammy Kelley, who makes sure there is a Christmas tree in every room. Most of the rest, it seems, stems from the fact that there’s a bit of friendly rivalry over whose display burns brightest, Kelley’s or that of his brother-in-law.
“Whoever they are talking to, Tammy’s parents always say the other’s display looks nicer,” Kelley said. “It’s more in fun than anything, but it does encourage us both to do more.”
While he doesn’t want to up the voltage on that rivalry, Kelley does enjoy his high-watt reputation.
“People in the summer months will say, ‘Oh, yours is that house – we come by every year,’ ” he said. “And people stop by when we’re setting up to ask ‘When are you going to turn the lights on?’ ”
The Dunkin family gets a charge out of sharing their holiday cheer, too. Ashley Dunkin teaches first grade at Tumwater Hill and invites students and parents to drive by.
“It’s really funny,” she said. “Sometimes, we’ll be in the dining room eating dinner, and a flash will go off from people taking pictures outside. My parents love when kids come from the neighborhood. Sometimes a van from the retirement homes will drive by.”
Illuminating can be expensive, between paying for the electricity and buying new lights. It also is time-consuming, taking at least a week of spare time. And there also is an art to the illusion.
Kelley has a 15-foot mega tree topped with a 2-foot star, but the computerized tree is not a tree at all — it just looks like one when it’s plugged in.
And Ken Dunkin has gone so far as to put a new star in the sky.
“The star hangs up in the sky between some trees,” Ashley Dunkin said. “The first year, he had to get big ladders because the star is way above our house. He put bolts in the back of the trees. He has this leather pulley system he uses.”
Ken Dunkin did count his lights several years ago, but he keeps right on buying more, and no one has been making a list or checking it twice. “We have at least 20,000,” Ashley Dunkin said.
Kelley wouldn’t even guess.
“I don’t know how you would count it,” he said. “I know people do. It’s clearly thousands and thousands of lights. Just a whole bunch.
“I know we have it plugged into probably six different electrical circuits.”
ADDRESS LIST
1. 6647 Columbine Court S.E., Lacey
2. 6606 Sierra Drive S.E., Lacey
3. 5317 Lake Hills St. S.E., Lacey
4. 5320 Lake Hills St. S.E., Lacey
5. 7939 Vireo Ct S.E., in Sunwood Lakes, between Lacey and Yelm
6. 7140 Deerfield Park Drive N.E., Hawks Prairie
7. 2003 Capitol Way S., Olympia
8. 5945 Kinney Road S.W., Olympia, on the west side of Black Lake
9. Ninth Avenue Southwest between Decatur Street Southwest and Thomas Street, west Olympia
10. 1703 Oxbow St. N.E., near Pleasant Glade Elementary north of Lacey
11. 4326 Goldsby St. S.W., near Black Lake
12. 2614 Bethel St. N.E., Olympia
13. 2228 Lakemoor Drive S.W., in west Olympia’s Ken Lake
14. 6708 Prairie Ridge Drive N.E., Hawks Prairie
15. 627 88th Ave. S.W., south of the Olympia Regional Airport
16. 3747 107th Ave. S.W., Littlerock area
17. 5703 Capitol Forest Drive, off Delphi Road
18. 9525 Evergreen Valley Road S.E., near Yelm Highway and Meridian Road
19. 4019 Lake Cove Loop S.E., Olympia
20. Lattin’s Country Cider Mill, 9402 Rich Road S.E.
21. 5410 66th Ave. N.W., west Olympia
22. 2112 Aspinwall Rd. NW, between The Evergreen State College and Eld Inlet
23. 205 Olympia St. E., Rainier
24. 208 Olympia St E., Rainier
25. 6615 Miner Drive S.W., off Littlerock Road, Tumwater
26. 532 Eklund Court S.E., Tumwater
27. 817 Harvest Drive, off Yelm Highway, Tumwater
28. 833 Harvest Drive, Tumwater
29. 845 V Street S.E., Tumwater
30. 221 93rd Ave. S.E., south of the Olympia airport, Tumwater
31. 15139 Carter Loop S.E., Yelm
