If you drive down the 7400 block of South Octavia in Bridgeview, you can’t miss the Pavel home.
The Christmas display most certainly draws you to slow down and even stop to have a look-and listen.
Jim and Sherry Pavel own the home, but Sherry says the credit for the yearly Christmas display is the work of her husband.
Jim’s family has a long history of Christmas decorating in Bridgeview.
“My grandparents moved to Bridgeview in 1947 and I believe my grandfather started decorating their house in the 7600 block of South Odell shortly thereafter. He continued when they moved to a house they had built in the 7400 block of Oketo,” Pavel said.
“My parents had the 7416 South Octavia house built in 1973 and continued the decorating tradition. I bought my first house in 2001 on 74th place and started decorating that house that Christmas. As my parents got older, I continued to decorate the Octavia house as well as my own until my parents passed in 2021 and we moved back into my childhood home. My mother used to tell me that my dad had me up on the roof or on a ladder at the age of 2 years helping him decorate.”
“I followed suit with our daughter and freaked Sherry (his wife) out when she came home from work one day when our daughter Jillian was about 2 years old and I had her in front of me on the ladder. I typically help friends and neighbors decorate their houses as well. I decorated a total of eight houses a few years back.”
Christmas decorating runs in his blood.
Pavel says their display is a combination of LED string lights, tube lights, homemade painted wood patterns, spot lights, wreaths, blow molds and other props. He estimates they put up over 5,000 lights.
He starts decorating on Black Friday and gets the majority of the decorations up and going that evening, but he said he always seems to have to fix a few things the following day before the yearly display is finished.
He took advantage of the warm weather this year and started working on the roof lights and a few other things. Pavel said it normally takes about 16-20 hours to put the display up, and about 3-4 hours to take it down to store for the next year.
Not only are the lights something to see, but when you stop and look, you can tune your radio to 89.9 FM and hear 11 different Christmas songs.
“You can hear the signal for about five blocks from the house,” he said.
“Some of the songs included the quartet singing Christmas trees, others just have the lights synchronized to the music. They are all programmed on a specialized computer software and then run via 64 channels (circuits) that are controlled by the computer program. I have a lighted sign in the front yard near the driveway that tells you to tune your radio to 89.9 FM.”
The Pavels will leave the display up through the evening of January 2. Jim said if the weather is bad, it may stay up another week.
On a fun note, Pavel told of the history of his ‘tree lot’ along the driveway.
“It’s a tribute to my father, Bob! He had been doing a “fake” tree lot since the mid ‘80s and one year he received a visit from the village building department as someone reported to the village that he was selling Christmas trees illegally in the front yard.”
Someone recently asked him where he bought the candy canes that line the driveway.
“I had to tell them that I made them from scratch. The person asked if I would be willing to make some for them, so I may have a project for the winter months.”
Jim says he has always loved decorating for Christmas, and his wife Sherry loves Halloween.
“We started decorating our yard for Halloween a few years ago and now our Halloween display is larger than the Christmas one. I had to stop buying new decorations as I ran out of room to store all of them, which all go in the attic of our 2.5 car garage.”
Pavel enjoys being known as the Clark W. Griswold of Bridgeview. Be sure to take a drive and see their decorations and have a listen, 7416 South Octavia, Bridgeview.