Christmas Tales of Alabama (11 page)

Donna never lost consciousness and remained alert at the hospital.

The next morning, when doctors realized the tenacious little girl might survive her injuries, they knew she needed to be taken to Birmingham, where specialized care could be provided at the University of Alabama hospital. Because Piedmont had no ambulance, doctors called the owner of the local funeral home, who brought the hearse to transport Donna on the hour-and-a-half trip to Birmingham.

The trip would be dicey. Though the little girl had survived the night, she remained dangerously close to death. No one knew if she could survive the trip. Governor Patterson sent state troopers to escort the hearse and ordered local authorities to turn off all traffic lights along the route so the driver would not be forced to stop. Hospital officials called ahead to the Birmingham staff to let them know to expect a severely injured child. At the time, the hospital's emergency room was not on the ground level and could only be reached by a single elevator. An emergency crew stood in the hospital's parking lot.

Soon, a car carrying an injured boy arrived. He had crashed after making a sled by attaching a stop sign to a roller skate. Emergency workers thought he was the severely injured child they were awaiting and loaded him into the elevator. In an odd twist, the hearse carrying Donna arrived seconds later when the elevator was in use. Doctors flew into action and performed emergency procedures in the parking lot, giving Donna a tracheotomy so she could breathe more easily.

Finally, doctors were able to get her into the hospital, where her years-long recovery began.

It was at this point that doctors made a radical decision for the time: they would not use pain medication. The risk of addiction to morphine or other painkillers was a very real concern, and doctors decided to see if the resilient child could withstand recovery without them.

Donna underwent her first fifty-five surgeries wide awake. Then a man who was following Donna's story as it was chronicled in the
Birmingham News
called and offered to try hypnosis. Before her fifty-sixth surgery, he hypnotized the child, and from then on, her surgeries were less painful. That first time, Donna remained in the hospital for four months, during which friends in Piedmont and Gadsden held fundraisers to help pay her medical bills.

Easter 1960 marked the only time in Donna's life that Easter and her birthday fell on the same day. For her, it was like a rebirth. Her family gave a huge party at the hospital, inviting her friends from Piedmont so they could become acclimated to Donna's appearance. She was scarred. She'd lost parts of her fingers and her earlobes. However, Donna had a sense that the terrible accident would serve a purpose in her life, and with the exception of a short time in high school when she sometimes wished she dated like the other girls, her conviction never wavered. Two Christmases after the accident, newspapers published a story about a meeting between Donna and Governor Patterson. As part of her therapy, Donna put a brush in her stubby fingers and created a painting of Alabama's state bird as a Christmas gift for the governor.

Donna would postpone further reconstructive surgeries to attend Auburn University, where she received a degree and became a counselor for burn victims. She also volunteered her time, talking with students, particularly those who were at an age where their bodies were changing, to let them know that people can survive changes much worse than acne.

Donna's first marriage ended in divorce, and when she married Alex McDougald, they each brought two daughters to the union. Donna finally had her perfect family.

She and Alex retired to Florida, where she speaks of her journey at churches and civic organizations. She spends time with her nine grandchildren and enjoys each day. More than fifty Christmases later, Donna believes her life is a gift from God. “God chose me for this journey,” she said. “He and I have been on an incredible ride for fifty years.”

She recalls the time a woman looked at her mangled fingers and said, “Honey, how will you ever peel potatoes?” Donna laughs at the remark. “I haven't met anything I couldn't do,” she says.

Despite the fact that she spent her eleventh Christmas in the hospital and that her father was killed in car accident on December 11, 1997, Donna loves Christmas. “That's when our Lord and Savior was born. That's the reason for the season,” she says. “It's been an amazing life. I'm honored he chose me for this life.”

H
OLIDAY
M
AGIC IN
L
IGHTS

When John Higginbotham was nine years old, he asked his mother if he could have two strings of the family's Christmas lights. He wanted to do his own decorating. He placed the lights on a bush at the side of the family's Birmingham home, unknowingly beginning a tradition that would become his legacy. His love of Christmas grew, he says, in childhood when his family would drive around Vestavia to view holiday light displays. His nose pressed to the cold glass of the car window, he thought, “This is magic. If I can ever do this for children someday, I will.”

Little John grew up to become a doctor. He married and moved to Huntsville, Alabama, settling in a home on Horseshoe Trail, which soon would become synonymous with Christmas. For more than thirty years, the Higginbotham home was a favorite holiday destination. The doctor's hobby grew until he had more than eighty-five thousand lights, real reindeer, a sleigh, Santa and a bubble machine.

Over the years, John's four children and many friends would help with the massive display. “One year, I got a cheap Santa costume on sale and I would sit on the front steps and the kids would come sit on my lap,” the doctor says.

One special Christmas, Dr. Higginbotham recalls seeing a ten-year-old boy with Down syndrome watching Santa curiously. The child's grandparents later told the doctor that they had been trying for years to get the boy to visit Santa. Finally, the child agreed. When he saw Higginbotham in the suit, he was hesitant, but when he finally approached, he had a look of wonder in his eyes. Behind his fake beard, Higginbotham grew teary. The child's grandfather noticed and turned to the people crowded on the street and led them in song. It was enough to give Santa time to regain his composure.

Dr. Higginbotham thought, “This is that meaningful to people.” It spurred him to create even larger displays, including building a train with a small engine, a coal car and mechanical elves riding in the caboose. He built a Christmas village filled with small houses in which children could play. Characters populated this tiny village, including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Snoopy and Charlie Brown, Mrs. Claus and more. Another small building was a North Pole post office, whose door had a slot where children could mail letters to Santa. One year, Dr. Higginbotham hired reindeer to come to the display, including Boo, the Huntsville reindeer that starred in the film
Prancer
.

Eventually, Dr. Higginbotham's children grew up and moved away.

In 1985, Dr. Higginbotham's mother, Leona, the one who had given him those first Christmas lights, died of cancer on Christmas Day. Though grieving, Higginbotham said his mother's loss did not change his love of Christmas. “She was a good, strong Christian,” he said. “She would want us to celebrate her memory and remember the good times.”

So his Christmas decorating continued. After another two decades or so, the display, beloved by the community, had grown overwhelming. In 2010, when Dr. Higginbotham began having health problems, he decided to forgo the display for the first time. He has not given up hope of perhaps erecting the display one last time.

As for members of the community, they are saddened at the loss of a tradition but are filled with love for the man who brought joy to so many children. Not long before Christmas 2010, employees from a local hospital put luminaria in the front yard that was no longer glittering with lights.

Dr. Higginbotham came out to find a sign on his lawn: “Merry Christmas. Thanks for the Memories.”

Alabama boasts many spectacular commercial and community light displays: Galaxy of Lights at Huntsville Botanical Garden, Magic Christmas in Lights at Bellingrath Gardens, Zoolight Safari at the Birmingham Zoo, Animals in Lights at the Montgomery Zoo, Christmas on the River in Demopolis and many more. But across the state, many families have been bitten by the decorating bug and are inspired to create a fantasy land in their own yards. Here are the stories of a few of those displays:

The Powell Family Athens

In 1988, two employees helped Bobby Powell decorate his Athens business with six strings of donated lights. By 1990, the display had grown much larger, but Powell's employees had left the business, and he decided the display was too much work for him to do alone. That August, he went to a few shops in downtown Athens, where he was stopped by several residents who thanked him and said, “Your display depicts the true meaning of the season.”

Powell thought, “The Lord's trying to tell me something.” He decided to continue putting up lights at his home at 12768 Cambridge Lane in Limestone County. By 2007, the display had grown to more than eighty-five thousand lights with 252 figures and structures decorated with the theme “Jesus in the Reason for the Season.”

Cars would drive through a path on the Powell property to see the displays while listening to Christmas music on the sound system. Because of the cost of utilities, Powell accepted donations in a box at the end of the drive. Early in 2011, Powell spent about $16,000 changing some of his display to LED lights. On April 27, 2011, one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in Alabama's history struck Limestone County, killing 4 local people—247 statewide—and damaging seven hundred homes. While the Powell home was unharmed, the display suffered about $20,000 in damage. Two towers from which the display operated were destroyed, as well as the majority of the trees—once filled with twinkling lights—on the property.

Powell said he is unsure he can overcome the staggering losses, but he takes comfort in the fact that for more than two decades, he brought hope, comfort and joy to so many north Alabama residents.

The Bradley Display Grand Bay

Just as the Bradley family display was ready for Thanksgiving 2009, seventy-five-year-old Andrew Jackson “A.J” Bradley began having chest pains. He was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent a quadruple bypass; however, he managed not only to participate in the family's annual tradition but to also help take down the lights on January 2. A.J. and Carolyn Bradley began the display in the cul-de-sac of Strickland Road in Grand Bay in 2005 and will continue as long as “they are able,” Carolyn says. For a few years, she and A.J. dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus, handing out 1,500 candy canes to children one year. Traffic overwhelmed the neighborhood, though, so the couple reverted to a drive-by display in which the lights dance to synchronized music playing on a local radio station.

For Carolyn, the display is a gift to the community. She is touched by the many letters the family receives, saying that the display lifted the writers' spirits following a death in the family or other troubling times. A man once told his pastor that he had accepted Christ while watching the nativity and the lights synchronized to “Silent Night.”

“That makes it all worthwhile,” Carolyn said.

The Fultondale Lights

When Stephen Ellis was a child in the late 1970s, his parents would bundle him into the car and drive him around Fultondale and nearby Birmingham to see decorated homes at Christmas. He remembered one yard decorated with lighted plastic blow-mold figures that filled him with awe. In 2000, Stephen and his wife, Haley, moved into their first home as newlyweds, and Stephen knew it was time that his home became the one that made children's eyes grow round with wonder. “I wanted to be a part of giving other families memories that will last forever,” he said. “I wanted to have the biggest and best display I could have.”

Stephen found decorations at yard sales and thrift stores and bought lights at after-Christmas sales. What began as a simple static display at 5732 Thirty-first Street North now has strings of lights and music controlled by computer, wire frames, lighted plastic figurines, rope lights and strobe lights.

The Ellises now have three children, twins Claire and Emma and son Carson, which Stephen says makes the display even more special. Each year, Stephen posts donation boxes and donates funds to the children's hospital.

Moore Lights of Glencoe

The display initially known as the Moore Lights began in 2004 when Logan Moore, a Glencoe teenager, installed fifteen thousand lights at the home where he lived with his parents. The next year, he had twenty-five thousand lights that were operated by computer and synchronized to music on local radio frequency. The lights and computer effects doubled in 2006, causing traffic jams in the neighborhood. In 2007, the display was moved to a location to accommodate traffic; however, cars still backed up for miles, and the display was discontinued—until 2010.