Shining examples

You light up our lives throughout the year, and during the holiday season, you also light up the Key with your holiday decorations.

Longboat Key doesn’t need snow flurries and icy temperatures to make it feel like Christmastime. Instead, we escape the cold and decorate in style — with thousands of colorful lights.

This year, the Longboat Observer searched up and down the Key for vibrant displays of holiday spirit in four categories: publisher’s choice, single-family home, condominium and commercial.

Here are our picks for the best and brightest.

Publisher’s Choice
Carman home, 6901 Poinsetta Ave.
With its classic red bows, white lights and giant poinsettias, the Carmans’ home looks like it’s straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The whole family joins in on the decorating each season, but Judy Carman believes they receieve a little help from someone else, too.

“It’s really Mother Nature that does the work,” she laughed.

About six years ago, Judy began planting poinsettias outside the couple’s Longbeach home. Today, some of those 60 plants are nearly 8 feet tall. It’s a home worthy of its street name: Poinsetta Avenue.

Commercial
Café L’Europe, 431 St. Armands Circle
Although St. Armands Circle is home to the largest Christmas tree on the Key and more than a few displays of lights, the classic holiday decorations at Café L’Europe caught the Longboat Observer’s eye.
With a mix of Christmas colors and candy canes, the restaurant provides a festive ambience for customers and passersby alike.

Condominium
Spanish Main Yacht Club, 5700 Gulf of Mexico Drive
An especially merry group of residents from Spanish Main worked together to create a new display of lights at the community’s entrance. With the collaborative effort of Mike and Lynn DeMusis, Charlie and Linda Czech, Rich and Pat Knudson, Craig Gesaman and Armando Nino, the bright lights are front and center for drivers to admire as they cruise down Gulf of Mexico Drive. The twinkling palm trees and Santa’s sleigh and reindeer call to mind a tropical Christmas season.

Single-Family Home
Lachmann Home, 681 Emerald Harbor Drive
Every year, Bob and Margaret Lachmann team up to make their Emerald Harbor home a winter wonderland — inside and out.

While Bob hangs strands upon strands of lights outside, Margaret works inside to create an environment sure to bring Christmas cheer to even the toughest Grinch. New to the display this year are LED lights, which are much brighter than your average twinkle lights and make the home outshine the competition.

Contact Kelsey Grau at [email protected]