Christmas decorators prepare for wind gusts

From afar the East Ridge neighborhood seems pretty quiet and peaceful but if you take a closer look you’ll see some busy residents.

They’re getting ready for a tradition that’s been around for generations

“The tradition actually started with our family many years ago,” Patrick Brandon said.

As a child, Brandon was once one of the bright eyed kids that enjoyed the Christmas lights at the East Ridge neighborhood.

“We would go to church Christmas Eve and our tradition was we’d drive through East Ridge. So the tradition now, is we provide the lighting,” Brandon said.

Some residents have been working on the decorations for a month, others began Friday evening.

“We’ve been out here a couple of hours,” said Jonathon Dunn.

Dunn is helping out for other reasons.

“Our grandparents have been doing this for years and they just recently passed away but we figured we can’t let a tradition die,” Dunn said.

But as elaborate as the decorations can be they can all taken down by the expected peak wind gusts of 40 to 50 miles per hour in the coming days.

“A couple of years ago we had pretty bad winds,” Brandon said.

The seasoned decorators said they are prepared.

“Pretty much everything’s secured,” Brandon said.

Brandon adds some extra tight wraps to keep the lights from moving.

“We’ve been putting stakes right beside all the decorations and we’ve been screwing then into the decorations,” Dunn said.

They also get a little help with some neighborly love.

“You just go pick up people’s neighborhood stuff and then you return it to them the next day,” Brandon said.

Residents said they are not worried so much about the winds. They worry more about people stealing the decorations.

Many of the residents are purchasing surveillance cameras to protect their investment.