The Bugg family still hasn't come to grips with the fact its immense annual holiday light and animation show has reached an abrupt end

By Carrie Seidman
Tribune Reporter

About this time of year, there is usually a tangle of extension cords, a mountain of lights, a phalanx of volunteers and a surge of activity in the yard at 2223 Hoffman Drive N.E.

This is normally the week that Christmas arrives at the Bugg house.

But this year, there is no activity.

No penguins skating around the South Pole. No Sylvester popping out of a box to get Tweety. No "White Christmas" playing on a continuous loop.

And no visitors.

"I'm sick about it," says Norman and Joyce Bugg's son, Nate, 46, who in recent years directed or performed most of the physical work involved in setting up the family's massive light and animation display. "I'm not doing anything this year. I'm not in the mood."

The sounds and sights - and crowds - of 30 seasons prior drew a fury last year. The Buggs donated their holiday display to the nonprofit New Mexico Multi-Cultural Foundation after a bitter court battle with the city and some of their neighbors over soliciting donations on private property and allegations that the display's many visitors disturbed the neighborhood.

What was an annual holiday tradition for so many now resides far from the Buggs' house at a place called ¡Traditions! A Festival Marketplace, about 25 miles north of Albuquerque, where it has been glamorized, augmented and renamed "Christmas Under the Stars."

What remains behind is a good deal of bitterness, disappointment and anger.

"I was sick and tired of the Grinches," Norman Bugg, 73, says of the people he feels attacked the very spirit of Christmas. "I want to just darken the house this year and go away."

"I'm very bitter," adds Joyce Bugg, 65, a self-confessed "stressful person" whose hair began to fall out when the haggling over the display first began. "We've even talked about packing up and leaving."

The Buggs are unrestrained in naming the primary objects of their resentment - City Councilor Sally Mayer; Donna Yetter, the former president of the Inez Neighborhood Association; and, most of all, Albuquerque's mayor, Martin Chavez.

The Buggs claim that former Mayor Jim Baca - whose wife, Bobbi, had been known to serve a stint or two on the Buggs' front porch as Mrs. Claus - gave assurances that the light show would not be shut down. They blame Chavez for the additional zoning violation they were slapped with (over an outdoor shed) when they fought the city's efforts to close down or move their display last December.

"The buck should stop with him," says Norman, a scowl of anger shadowing his usually jovial, freckled face. "That I would be fighting City Hall and Mayor Chavez over Christmas lights and a shed . . . well, I would not have believed it could happen in the United States of America."

Chavez says he had little to do with the situation and knows nothing about the additional zoning violation.

"When I came into office in early December, it was already understood that it would be their last year," the mayor says. "My recollection is that they were in clear violation of city ordinance. Frankly, I always admired the Buggs and what they were doing for the community."

Nevertheless, it has been difficult for the Buggs to let go of their intense feelings. Norman, a rotund man who has suffered four heart attacks in recent years, is still easily moved to tears when someone mentions how much the display meant to them. His wife, who grew up in Albuquerque and persuaded her husband to return here after his 28 years in the Navy, is disillusioned with the city and fearful of future harassment from the zoning department.

But it is Nate whose face most reveals the family's disappointment. He was "dead set against us" giving the display away, says his father. His mother simply shrugs and adds, "It was Christmas to him."

Nate is the one out of the Buggs' four children - three sons and a daughter - who remained intimately involved with the display, taking over the physical chores of assembly when his father's ill health relegated him to a supervisory role.

Nate cannot bring himself to recount any of the "too many to tell" memories that were marked by each holiday display - from the wild teenage New Year's parties that closed a few seasons, to his two marriages that came and went over those years. It was an integral part of his life.

"And it's a part of my kids' lives," says Nate, whose children are 7 and 14. "And now they won't have it. I was just driving in today and thinking, `By now we'd have all the lights up . . .'"

Norman and Joyce have already made four sojourns to visit their display at its new site in Budaghers, midway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, since it opened Nov. 14. They are pleased with the way Jim Long, president of American Property Management, has treated their holiday spectacle and are delighted that contributions will continue to go to Noon Day Ministries, a program to assist Albuquerque's homeless.

Crowds visiting the display during the opening days - it is open Thursdays through Sundays from 5:30 to 9 p.m. - have been "exceptional," says Long.

"It seems like the answer," says Joyce. "It found a new home, and it's a nice place."

Norman adds, simply, "It's beautiful. First class."

But Nate said he will not repeat the one visit he made to ¡Traditions! earlier this month.

"I don't like it," he says. "I feel like it doesn't belong there."

Last week Joyce mentioned to Nate that it was probably time for her to get out the one artificial tree and the interior decorations she retained. She would set them up on the east-facing sun porch of their home.

"He just said, `I don't know why you bother,'" Joyce sighs.

The Buggs admit that they probably could not have kept the display going forever. It was a tremendous amount of work at a significant cost, they say.

"We probably would have quit anyway," says Norman. "But we didn't want to quit under those circumstances."

Today the Buggs' front yard is empty. A few faded artificial flowers fill pots on the porch, and an assortment of wind chimes tinkle softly with each breeze. The circular driveway, trampled by so many feet in the past, is buckled in one spot.

As a late autumn day turns to twilight, the only glow is from a television set at the rear of the house.

Meanwhile, Norman is lobbying for the family to go to Laughlin, Nev., for Christmas week. It will be warmer there, he says.

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