Judith Sullivan moved into her Mankato neighborhood nearly 70 years ago when she was just 8 years old.
Her parents picked the area because they liked the small-town neighborhood feel.
Little did Sullivan know then that her new neighborhood would eventually birth a Chula Vista tradition.
Christmas Circle on Whitney and Mankato Circle opened its 60th year on Dec. 9 and will run through Dec. 26. Lights are turned on at about 5 p.m. and during the week they turn off at 10 p.m., 11:30 p.m. during the weekends.
Sullivan, 76, was part of Christmas Circle since the very beginning.
“When it first started, we had it a week before Christmas through New Year’s,” she said.
“But we soon found out after Christmas, people are finished with Christmas,” she said.
She said the annual Christmas tradition started when a group of neighborhood dads returned from military duty and wanted to do something spectacular for their children during the holiday season.
So, she said, those dads decided to go all out in decorating their homes for Christmas.
“They didn’t do it for the community, they did it for their kids,” she said. “The first couple of years we didn’t have people (coming) here. We had lights strung up from pepper tree to pepper tree, a spotlight in each tree shining up into the branches and we wrapped the trees like candy canes. That’s all we had at the beginning. It was just for us, and then it grew.”
Then in following years, people took notice of the light displays and holiday decorations that the word of Christmas Circle started to spread throughout Chula Vista, Sullivan said.
Now, about 48,000 cars drive through the circle each year to view the Christmas themed community.
Sullivan, a retired junior high school teacher, now splits her time living in southern Nevada and Chula Vista with her longtime partner Bobby Lopez.
The couple makes it a priority to come back to their Chula Vista home in December so that they can participate in the Christmas festivities.
Outside their home, there are Christmas inflatable bears on a merry go round. One year, her home had a Christmas pony.
Sullivan said decorating one’s home for Christmas Circle is not mandatory. It is strictly volunteer based, which she said is why she cannot believe the tradition has lasted as long as it has.
By her tally, only three of her neighbors did not include their homes this year for Christmas Circle.
She said the tradition remains strong because of newer, younger couples with children who move into the circle. She said these families excitedly join in by decorating their homes and offering help to a lot of the senior members.
“When people move in here they are told this is Christmas circle,” Lopez said.
The city of Chula Vista helps with traffic control as it transforms Mankato and Whitney into a one-way street for the two week period of Christmas Circle.
Sullivan said while people mainly drive through the circle to see the decorated homes, that is not the best way to do it. She said the best views come from walking the circle. She recommends walking it twice, once on the inside, then go back to walk it on the outside.
Sullivan says she walks Christmas Circle every night.
“There are so few things that parents can do with their family that don’t cost anything,” she said. “And this is one of them.”
