Going to the extreme

June Casagrande

It’s a wonder national television didn’t discover her sooner: Gay

Wassall-Kelly, a red-haired dynamo who for the last seven years has

dressed up as a Christmas tree complete with battery-operated lights,

will be seen by more than just members of Newport Beach’s boat parade.

Next year, she’ll be seen from sea to shining sea and beyond, waving from

her dock to parade boats floating by.

This week, a production company for the Home and Garden Television has

been filming Wassall-Kelly’s house for next year’s “Extreme Christmas” TV

special. It’s not just her unbelievably amped-up home that caught their

eye, not just the elaborately decorated tugboat docked at her house, not

just the eye-popping Christmas tree costume she wears. It’s the fact

that, added all up, these things amount to an extreme that also provided

the cable channel an opportunity to capitalize on the city’s spectacular

boat parade.

“We wanted to do something on the Newport Boat parade,” said Peter

Holmes, owner of The Idea Factory, a Sacramento-based television

production company that does work for the Home and Garden Television’s

“Extreme Homes” programs. “The problem is, all the yachts have neither a

home nor a garden.”

But for Doug Stuckey, public affairs director for the Newport Beach

Chamber of Commerce, this problem wasn’t a problem, but a challenge to

find a way to prove that Newport Beach ought to be in pictures.

“I had been talking with the show’s producers for a while, trying to

help them get a home angle on the boat parade,” Stuckey said. “Everyone

who knows Gay knows that she goes all out decorating her home, decorating

her tugboat and doing that in a way that involves the parade. And her

personality is so fun. I knew she would be perfect.”

Wassall-Kelly, editor of the Balboa Beacon, has become something of a

holiday institution on Balboa Peninsula. She made her lighted Christmas

tree dress herself. Along with husband Bill, they put up all the

decorations on their home and tugboat by themselves -- a job that this

year took about four weeks.

“It’s a lot of work,” Gay said. “But it’s worth it.”

They begin decorating their Edgewater home shortly after Thanksgiving.

A Christmas tree lights up every room inside, while outside about 17

trees in the yard get the same treatment. Then, they string their home

with lights: thousands of them. In fact, for the past several years they

have put up more than they can power.

“We had added 100 amps of electrical capacity last year, but this

year, we bought some even bigger lights and ended up needing even more

amps,” Wassall-Kelly said. “We ran two 25-amp lights to the dock, and

they blew. In my house, all Christmas season, you just accept the fact

that you can’t turn on the toaster the same time as the dishwasher.”

Though she usually favors white lights, this year, in keeping with the

boat parade’s theme of “Let Freedom Ring,” their dock is decorated in

red, white and blue. Across their property are animated replicas of

snowmen, Santa Claus and an angel.

This year, boat parade organizers awarded Wassall-Kelly first prize

for lights and animation in their Ring of Lights home-decorating

competition.

“What she does is a great combination of things that link together

home decoration, Christmas and the boat parade,” Holmes said. “But when

Doug told us how she dresses up like a Christmas tree, that really sealed

the deal. All this from a woman who has flaming red hair and who’s a

grandmother, it just sounds like such a curious story. We thought it

would make fun television.”

Wassall-Kelly would agree that dressing up in her Christmas tree

dress, complete with battery pack, has shown how truly above and beyond

the call of the season she’s willing to travel.

“One year, I had a dog try to lift his leg at me,” she recalled,

laughing.

Film crews planned to spend two days shooting Wassall-Kelly, her home

and tugboat from the shore and from a boat in the parade. When the

segment is broadcast next year to an international audience, it will be a

positive reflection on the whole city, Stuckey said.

“I think anything we do, especially around the holiday time, to bring

a little extra notice to Newport Beach is a good thing,” Stuckey said,

noting that such exposure boosts tourism dollars in the long and short

term, as well as Newport Beach’s image as a destination city.

But while she’s excited about the international exposure,

Wassall-Kelly said her focus is mainly in her own backyard.

“It’s really a labor of love,” she said. “Besides, this is what you do

when you’re over 60. In a good way, you lose control.”

-- June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .