Bellevue nights bright at this couple’s house

Eleven months of the year, Doug Dawson is a soft-spoken, mild-mannered, energy-conserving man quite content to come and go unnoticed on the quiet little side street on which he has lived since 1998.

Come December, it all changes.

"I'm a nut when it comes to multicolored lights," he said while standing in the front yard of his Bellevue home.

Arms sweeping this way and that, he showed off a collection of lights that has grown from about 1,000 in 2002 to more than 43,000 (and counting) this year in, on and around the house at 4026 Mount Vernon St.

The collection combines classics with custom creations, all extremely well-lit.

"I just love seeing all the different colors," he said.

He's pretty well-covered in that category. He has lights of every variety, from relatively sedate little twinklers to glowing balls that change hue. There's a light-up wreath in the side window of his car, and a light-up vest on Josie, a huge 18-month-old Newfoundland that can cover the yard in about four steps.

There are Christmas staples, such as light-up candy canes along one fence and Santas aplenty all over.

But it's not all traditional.

There's an army of penguins along one sidewalk, watching guard over a larger penguin that's decked out in red-and-green holiday wear. Made from plastic bowling pins of the type a preschooler might own, they are a Dawson original.

"The problem with bowling pins is, they're so dark," he said. "With these, you just poke a little hole in the bottom and stick them over a light, and they'll light up a path."

Follow one of those paths down the alley side of the house, and you'll see custom-cut aluminum characters mounted to the side of the home, including a Grinch-looking guy encircled with green lights.

"That's not the Grinch," Dawson said excitedly. "It's the Grumple from 'The Simpsons.'"

Make your way out back, and you'll see a shooting star high in a pine tree, complete with trailing embers. Getting it up involved a rope and, one year, a bottle of holiday cheer for an adventurous friend.

"I'm not climbing up there," said Dawson.

But he's not going without it, either.

"If I can see the star from the end of the block, I'm happy," Dawson said.

The glow was enough to get Mark Stansbury and Mary Newton to stop by one night last week.

"I feel like it's a gift to us all for you to do this," Stansbury told Dawson.

"It's just special," said Newton.

It'll stay special through the end of the year. Come January, Dawson said, his wife makes him turn it off. Then he has two weeks to dismantle the whole thing.

"If she's using 'lights' and 'February' in the same sentence, I know I'm in trouble."

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .