PALMER TWP., Pa. – A Northampton County house springs to life when the sun sets, with a holiday display fit for Santa.<\/p>\n
It draws people from all over the Lehigh Valley.<\/p>\n
For a 24th year, David Rotondo is lighting up Palmer’s Oregon Street with characters and decorations. It’s a tradition that goes back to the 1960’s.<\/p>\n
“My grandfather. He was a big Christmas guy,” remembered Rotondo.<\/p>\n
He’s the owner of Dave’s Pool and Pond Service. But Christmas is Dave’s currency.<\/p>\n
“I don’t work again until Spring, so this is my vacation right here. This is where my money is. Everybody spends it on vacations, I spend my money on my stuff,” said Rotondo, motioning to his collection. He has 180 pieces on display this year.<\/p>\n
“Santa stops by to visit. The elf’s in there hanging,” Rotondo said.<\/p>\n
But it all began with ‘the mean one.’<\/p>\n
“The Grinch got me started. I wanted the Grinch so bad and they didn’t have it anywhere. Rite Aid was the only place that sold the Grinch, so went to all the Rite Aids to buy all the Grinches. Then I sold some on Ebay to make a little money, so I could buy some more,” he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The work began months ago. Mostly done by Rotondo, and a small band of volunteers, including his neighbor, George Gerlach.<\/p>\n
“It’s awesome. He does it every year. for the community. Everybody loves it. I actually helped him this year, a little bit,” Gerlach said.<\/p>\n
One of the most interesting attractions are the 20 to 25 foot inflatables, including a brand new gingerbread man, new to the collection in 2025. Rotondo says the traditions that are being created every year, are special.<\/p>\n
“You have people that come over and say, ‘Hey, this is where my first kiss was.’ ‘This is where he asked me to marry him.’ “This is where I told my husband I was pregnant,” he said.<\/p>\n
Rotondo basically turned his house into a storage warehouse. But when darkness falls, it’s Christmas, and he’s home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PALMER TWP., Pa. – A Northampton County house springs to life when the sun sets, with a holiday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,6290],"class_list":{"0":"post-65201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-easton-area"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}