Holiday Lights and the Woman Who Lit the Way

By Craig MacDonald

California may have more spectacular holiday lights than any other state, with so many unbelievable displays wherever you go. There are literally thousands of special light scenes from Riverside's more than 4 million lights at the Mission Inn, Pasadena's Hastings Ranch,  the Los Angeles Zoo Lights, Oakland's Holiday Circle of Lights (5000 Piedmont Ave.), San Francisco's Union Street Fantasy of Lights, Los Gatos' Fantasy of Lights (333 Blossom Hill Road), Ramona's Happy Lights, Oxnard Christmas Tree Lane, the San Diego Botanic Garden of Lights to a Placerville home (446 Canal St.) which features more than 700,000 lights plus many, many more.

It is one thing when lights appear on structures and plants but when they're on a human, it especially blows you away.

One Christmas holiday long, long ago, in what was then a much smaller town of San Jose, California, there was a legendary woman known as Twinkles, who always anointed the season in her handmade Yuletide dress. This amazing, festive gown was created in the 1950s by the teacher. It was composed of hundreds of tiny, colorful light bulbs, which formed Christmas trees, stars, musical notes and even a New Year's baby in diapers. I have never seen anything quite like it, before or since.

Twinkles, as the students and their parents called her, powered her awesome display with batteries, which were cleverly concealed in her purse, itself encircled in a barrage of bulbs made to look like reindeer.

This walking, smiling, one-person extravaganza also had red and green lights on her shoes and a pulsating ensemble of bulbs on her hat, patterned not only like mistletoe but a grinning Santa Claus as well. I recall one time when Twinkles' merry presence was especially appreciated. The occasion was a school Christmas dance with hundreds in attendance.

Twinkles was there in her best dress, content with being the highlight on the dance floor and thinking little of her role as chaperone. Then it happened. A driving rain knocked out some electrical wiring and the school's auditorium went pitch dark.

Aglow as usual, Twinkles made her way over to a battery-operated microphone, where she told everyone to stay calm and stay still. She next left the dance floor with myself and several others as we made our way down the hall to a crafts classroom.

She opened the door and we all grabbed candles, which we placed in containers and took back to the auditorium, spreading them around the floor. The dance continued and was a smashing success, thanks to Twinkles who had lit the way. She had used her ingenuity and creativity decades before Debbie Boone's hit song, “You light up my life.” Twinkles had lit up ours and given us a delightful holiday memory we would never forget!

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