Marching to His Own Little Drummer Boy

His name may not be familiar, but his face might be. Jon Menick is a character actor--fortyish, bald, the Everyman type. Perhaps you’ve seen him on a sitcom or two.

In the Santa Clarita tract where he and wife, Louisa, have lived for seven years, he’s a bit of a curiosity. Everybody knows that Menick gets carried away at Christmas. Yet, unlike those of his neighbors, his yard is not festooned with colored lights, candy canes, all that stuff. “If my block was a set of teeth,” he says, “my house would be the black one.”

So one recent evening, the ‘hood set out to shame the Menicks into conformity. A few neighbors took the trouble to decorate the Menick home themselves, hanging a strand of lights in a hideously haphazard pattern. It was only after he threatened to leave the lights up, Menick says, that the neighbors took them down.

The cop who lives across the street barked a warning: “Get with the program, Menick!”

“The irony of it is,” says Menick, “he’s Jewish.”

*

There’s something about the holidays, and something about cookie-cutter suburbia, that turns certain people into toy soldiers. It’s tempting to think of this as the attack of the Christmas Nazis: You vill put up ze holiday lights! You vill drink ze eggnog!

Tempting, but an exaggeration. Yet I do know a couple who, upon moving to Bakersfield, discovered that they had bought into one of those blocks that goes gaga every Christmas, and to hell with the electric bill. The neighbors informed them, in no uncertain terms, to get with the program. And they did.

Snobs may roll their eyes. The devout may bemoan Christmas as a competitive sport. Still, most of us think of these streets as a nice place to visit. Children are enchanted. Adults oooh and ahhh. Menick’s street, it turned out, wasn’t as gaudy as I expected. It wasn’t any more Christmasy than the cookie-cutter street where I grew up, where every house had an elm out front and a guy went door to door, charging a couple of bucks to wrap the trunks in tin foil and a swirl of red, plastic ribbon. Only the Grinches said no.

Nope, Menick’s street is brighter than most, but it’s demure compared to some. Consider Woodland Hills’ “Candy Cane Lane.” In this neighborhood east of Winnetka Avenue and south of Oxnard Street, residents erect carousels and Ferris wheels.

Menick really does love Christmas. He wanted to show me Langside Avenue, a few miles from his home. First, we stopped by a gaily lit neighbor’s house, and Menick was mortified to discover that the elves were missing. Where there should have been a display of painted wood cutouts, there were only thin posts planted in the ground. Thieves had struck this house before, Menick told me. They must have come again.

Then we drove to Langside. Painted plywood cutouts are popular here, but the displays had as much to do with Disney as Christmas. There’s a Nativity scene on one side of the street and Beauty and the Beast on the other. Over here are carolers and over there is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. One yard was covered with, presumably, 101 Dalmatians--plus a pair of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Go figure.

We drove back to his place. He’s got a wreath on the door.

*

You could say that Jon Menick internalizes the Christmas spirit. He begins work on his yuletide decorations before Halloween. What takes so much time isn’t the 10-foot tree strung with 2,000 lights or the second tree adorned solely with Santa Claus ornaments. Rather, it’s the fanciful miniature re-creation of 1920s New York that dominates his dining room.

The churches, the brownstones and the museum are ceramic collectibles. With plywood, papier-mache and plastic foam, Menick created the landscape and the infrastructure. He prides himself on attention to detail. There’s an uncovered subway station graced with tiny theater posters. There’s even a tiny sewage outfall pipe--and it’s crusted with gunk. There’s a graveyard next to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. For fun he put friends’ names on the tombstones. The crypt marked MENICK remains open.

He belongs to a club called Village Addicts Anonymous, which explains a lot. Some members build add-ons to their homes to host their habit. Menick’s cityscape is smaller than many, but it was runner-up in a national competition. “The neighborhood kids all come here at Christmas,” he says. “And if their hands get near it, I hit them.”

I’m pretty sure he was joking. Seeing this, however, made it easier to understand why neighbors would want Menick to unleash his muse outdoors. Then they could show Langside Avenue a thing or two.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Please include a phone number.

You could say that Jon Menick internalizes the Christmas spirit. He begins work on his yuletide decorations before Halloween.