Christmas in Tacoma means many things. Battling against shoppers at the mall. Drinking hot chocolate at Zoolights. Singing while waiting for the Christmas Ship.
But decades ago, Christmas also meant a contest that no longer exists. For almost 50 years, homes and businesses throughout T-town duked it out for the best holiday decorations.
The Tacoma Times details how, in the mid-1920s, Tacoma's Christmas tree contests began, taking advantage of the many evergreens dotting the yards of homes in city. As the contests grew more popular, they expanded to include doorways, trees inside but viewable through windows, rooftop displays, as well as commercial locations. Contest divisions were added throughout the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s to accommodate the growing city and many entries. The contests were most often headed up by the Tacoma Garden Club with assistance from other local committees and groups. Contest winners could expect fame and riches. According to the Times, the grand prize was a whopping $15.
Ira S. Davidson, commissioner of Tacoma Light, is quoted in a 1939 Tacoma News Tribune story as saying Tacoma was becoming known as the "The Electric City" due to its holiday sparkle.
As World War II progressed, Tacoma's Christmas bling contests suffered. As The Tacoma Times wrote in 1943, "... because war industries need all available power, and because of acute shortages of light bulbs and other electrical materials, the people of Tacoma Tuesday were asked to restrict Christmas decorations to interior displays only."
According to an article in the Tacoma News Tribune from 1945, before the war, electricity was cheap and many households decorated the trees in their yards. But during the war, the Northwest was within range of Japanese bombs. Lit trees might as well have been bull's eyes for bombers. Blackouts were more common, so the contests ceased. In 1945, when the war ended, Tacoma's Christmas spirit renewed - and contests resumed with great fervor.
In the 1950s and 60s, News Tribune articles announced spectacular displays - in 1954, the entire hillside of Brown's Point was virtually lit up by displays; in 1955, Earl L. Irwin, owner of the B&I, won the contest for a 35-foot-high Ferris wheel with six reindeer passengers and a Santa Claus sliding down a 12-foot chimney, all perched on the B&I roof.
But all good things must end. The year 1973 came with a great electricity shortage, one that shut down the contests for a couple years. Even though Tacoma City Light said the contests could go on in 1974, the extravagant use of electricity had come under so much fire that the event began to falter. Where wartime and other crises could not fell the tradition of lighting up homes for the holidays, a conservationist attitude about energy use after this crisis could.
Today, while there is certainly no shortage of lights around Tacoma, even the memory of this contest is all but gone. Even asking long-time Tacoma residents yields little success in finding anyone who remembers the days when we burned through electricity proudly in the name of Christmas cheer.