Christmas Lights, Overdone Just Right

"I think it's wonderful," Bryant, 52, says as he squeezes between the mix of real and fake plants, waterfalls, hanging beads and strings of lights that crowd the small apartment, awaiting their moment in the spotlight. He launches into a discussion of the Dadaists and synesthesia, or art that mixes the senses, like tasting color. "They were talking about that in the '20s," he says. "It's exciting to see that happening now and that Llori's a part of that."

Stein nods solemnly. "Yeah, like for me, when there's too much noise, it tastes like battery acid."

Matt Phillips, aka Santa, runs the uglychristmaslights.com Web site. Most of the photos on the site -- tangled displays of Christmas lights; blinding rows of inflatable snowmen, Santas, nutcrackers, toy soldiers, SpongeBobs and Scooby-Doos lined up like the Usual Suspects; neon juggling monkeys; armies of elves and grazing reindeer -- are taken by anonymous guerrilla photographers out on the prowl for Christmas on steroids.

"Some of these things, you just have to wonder what people are thinking," Phillips said.

But Stein submitted her own photo -- she even posed in the Christmas jacket she made by poking blue LED lights through the sleeves of a black jacket. (Her cane, with gold tinsel and colored lights snaking up its length, was out of sight.)

Rose Reed, who has managed and lived at Lee Square Apartments for nearly 20 years, said she's never seen anything quite like Stein's balcony. Only one person's ever complained that it looks tacky. "Most people are anxious to see what she'll do next," Reed said.

Stein's reasons for creating what she calls her own Christmas horror are fairly simple. It's fun. And growing up, back in the days of big, fat, colored Christmas lights, stringy tinsel and plastic Santas, her grandmother and everyone on their street used to joyfully and garishly light up the neighborhood this time of year. She misses that.

But mainly, when she lost the ability to see, brought on by a stroke and malignant hypertension, Christmas lights became the only hedge against darkness. "The illumination is really about the only thing I can see anymore."

So let Llori Stein, the underground artist who believes that anything and everything is art, dream a perfect Christmas dream. In her mind, she sees a nice little house with rolling hills and trees around it. The house has a library, a Jacuzzi and a studio where she and Bryant can, in her words, evacuate all their emotions into something tangible. They'd sit around listening to Beethoven or Richard Pryor, drinking homemade wine and laughing.

She'd have synthetic Christmas trees in every room. And outside, a gigantic purple Christmas tree. And a kind of magic wonderland in the yard with tons of lights that would look like little UFO eggs.

"I'd definitely go overboard," she says, her voice faraway in a private Christmas paradise. "I'm sure it would definitely be ugly."