ARLINGTON, Texas – It’s a trend a lot of people are jumping on this year: decorating for the holidays earlier than usual with the hope of spreading joy. The terms “COVID Blues, Pandemic Blues, and 2020 Blues” had people all over the county decorating earlier for the Fourth of July, Halloween, and now Christmas.
Families that would usually wait until the day after Thanksgiving to deck the halls had their lights Christmas lights twinkling the day after Halloween. In some northern states, Christmas tree sales are up 50% compared to mid-November in recent years.
In the Arlington suburb of Dalworthington Gardens, you can find a restaurant that started decorating the first week in October, and although some guest would say it’s a remedy for this year’s funk, it’s nothing new. For the last 41 years, Campo Verde Mexican Restaurant has held the tradition of spending six weeks decking its halls in gaudy fashion.
“The Griswolds don’t have nothing on us, no way,” said owner James Williams.
The spectacle of shimmering lights is a north Texas staple and Williams says he wasn’t going to let COVID-19 restrictions and capacity rollbacks hinder his Christmas spirit. Williams says the four-decade tradition which includes 200,000 lights, more than 3,000 yards of shiny garland, and dozens of lit trees and Santas is a destination for thousands of people from all around the world.
Over the years, Williams says local news outlets featuring the restaurant’s lavish display is a normal occurrence. But in recent years he says his decorations have gotten world-wide attention and he sees it with the number of out of county tourists who say the restaurant is on their “North Texas to-do-list.”
“We were on national TV last year, several times,” said Williams. “I had over 500 people in the parking lot and down the street out of their cars waiting to get in 30 minutes before it even opened one morning.”
For the first couple of years Williams took care of the decorations but eventually realized managing the restaurant and spending hours upon hours stringing and stapling wasn’t feasible. For the last 15 years it’s been employee Gloria Guerrero’s job to make sure the restaurant shines. This year she and her daughter Yesenia Aguero spent more than 40 days covering every wall in the dining areas with decorations.
“Once we finish with the lights, we start with the garland, that’s the second thing, so we have steps on what we do. After the garland then we start doing the decorations on the ceilings,” said Aguero.
Williams says he’s well aware of the “2020 Blues” and believes families everywhere shouldn’t let this year’s unfortunate events keep their decorations in the attic. He’ll keep his restaurant decorated until mid-March.
“People having fun is kind of infectious, and [when] customers are in good moods, it helps my employees to be in a good mood,” said Williams. “Even though they might come to work kind of down, they come in here you can’t stay down. In here with all this fun going on, it’s kind of hard. To me that’s more fun than me having fun, because I’m having fun watching them.”
Williams says Campo Verde is currently following Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order by operating at 75% capacity. The restaurant is located at 2918 West Pioneer Parkway and is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, except Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.
