Kimberly Mathews, left, and sister Terri Ulmer look through a few of the nearly 200 decorations in storage behind the home of their parents, Lester and Jackie Grant. (Brian LodenThe Vicksburg Post)

[11/25/04] Lester Grant would spend two weeks every year before Thanksgiving testing lights and electrical circuits and another week setting up his popular Santa’s Lane display.

His wife, Jackie, spent weeks herself drawing patterns and painting snowmen, animals and Christmas carolers.

It was bigger and better every year, and hundreds of families made their way out to Freetown Road for holiday lights and sights that drew more and more people each year.

But toward the end, as the Grants were phasing down their displays in retirement, tragedy struck. Two years ago and two days before Christmas, Lester Grant died in a workplace accident. And Jackie Grant died this year, one day shy of 21 months later.

Now, two of their children hope the tradition their parents started will live again with the City of Vicksburg.

“We figured this is what they would have wanted,” said a daughter, Kimberly Grant Mathews.

The Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted Wednesday to accept the Grants’ collection of nearly 200 decorations that made up Santa’s Lane. Officials said they plan to display the pieces along the downtown section of Washington Street.

“It’s a wonderful gift for the community and sort of in the spirit of Vicksburg,” said Mayor Laurence Leyens, adding he remembered visits to Santa’s Lane as a child. “Hopefully, it will become as much of a tradition as the Santa out front of City Hall.”

Barry Graham, communications manager for the city, said crews will begin putting up the pieces next week in the garden beds downtown. Because of time limitations and space, he said they will only put out part of the display this first year.

What became Santa’s Lane started about 19 years ago with a simple, homemade Santa Clause on the roof and two reindeer handing up a sack. Terry Grant Ulmer said her mother wanted that first Santa Claus on the roof at Christmas, and everything grew from there.

Ulmer said that each year her parents would add other pieces and then lights and then music. Around the second year or third, Lester Grant decided to widen the driveway to the family home at 3075 Freetown Road and eventually he marked out a circle drive for the display.

People knew that at dark on Thanksgiving Day, Santa’s Lane would open.

“We would have people waiting on Thanksgiving evening for them to turn it on,” Ulmer said.

She said that the pieces were made by using an overhead projector to enlarge images from coloring books and then tracing the outline on wood. Her father would cut the pieces out and her mother would paint them.

The collection includes small animals, Christmas elves and reindeer, Disney and Peanuts characters, and others.

“Initially, I have to admit I was a little hesitant,” about donating the collection, Ulmer said. “There’s a lot of sentimental value here. I can look at any of these pieces and see mom sitting there painting or daddy putting it up.”

Ulmer did keep a few pieces from the collection, a manger scene that the city could not accept because it is religious in nature. She said she plans to set it up in her own yard.

Mathews said they were contacted earlier this year by Rosalie Theobald, director of the downtown Main Street program, and Billy Sheffield, who operates downtown carriage tours, about donating the collection to the city. She said it was the number of people who have asked about the display and the idea of it living on that made them decide to make the donation.

“People would come from Jackson and Monroe and all over the place. We never really realized it because we grew up with it,” Mathews said.

Graham said that plans are to set up the entire display next year either on the vacant lot in the 1000 block of Washington Street between Grove and Jackson streets or along the boulevard on Jackson Street.