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Offbeat Postscripts: Bright Light in a Dark Winter

Offbeat Postscripts is a series of short posts where we cover small topics of offbeat history in Northern Virginia.

By Matthew T. Eng, Offbeat NOVA

Hello again.

The absence of posts for Offbeat NOVA is 100% due to the purchase of a house and subsequent move during the month of November and the first half of December 2020. It’s been an exhausting month and a half, to say the least. Now that everything and everyone is settled in (for the most part), we can continue getting back creating. A Christmas miracle, indeed.

In the week since the hysteria reached a necessary plateau, we kicked around several ideas about a Christmas-themed posting. A cursory search on the Internet about Christmas in Northern Virginia yielded more dark and macabre results at first: Christmas morning murders in Falls Church from 2015, and a murder-suicide pacts in Stephens City. There was also quite a bit of information about the Mt. Vernon Antique Center fire from three years ago in Fairfax County. None of that really spoke to us on the timeliness of the holidays season. In a year where the shitter has been perpetually full, we decided to focus on something a bit happier: Christmas lights. In the age of COVID, Christmas lights are a refreshing way to find happiness and joy from a safe and secure distance.

An internet search on the craziest Christmas lights in the area brought me to one woman: Holly Zell. She is currently the web producer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Her original website, “Historical Tacky Christmas Lights,” began in 2003 as a database for the best and tastefully tacky Christmas lights in Northern Virginia. The site includes a map and addresses of the best lights, as well as suggested driving routes. This woman has remained a dedicated and organized purveyor of all things dealing with exterior illumination for nearly twenty years. She know runs “Holly’s Tacky Christmas Lights” over at FairfaxChristmasLights.com. Her LinkedIn page noted that the current website was part of her grad project at Strayer University as a showcase for scripting languages like PhP and MySQL. Whether intentional or not, the current site looks remarkably similar to the simplistic-yet-effective tripod site from sixteen years ago.

We found ourselves going back to the original site. Would the same addresses still have lights up, nearly two decades later? We took a look at the original 2004-2006 list and found the houses closest to our current neighborhood on the Fairfax County side of Alexandria. We were not disappointed.

3912 Lincolnshire Street, Annandale, VA — LIGHTS

Of the four we checked, this one was by far the most extravagant. (Holly Zell/Offbeat NOVA Photo)

5811 Ash Drive, Springfield, VA — LIGHTS!

This one still has all of the “plastic fantastic” displays that we love. (Holly Zell/Offbeat NOVA Photo)

7704 Wilbur Court, Springfield, VA — LIGHTS!

This was the classiest of the four we checked. There are significantly LESS reindeer than from fifteen years ago. (Holly Zell/Offbeat NOVA Photo)

6283 Wills Street, Alexandria, VA — DARK

This was unfortunately dark this year. (Holly Zell/Offbeat NOVA Photo)

We didn’t make it to the Collingwood house in Alexandria to take a picture because it was getting late, but we already knew that a recent injury stopped the owner from putting on a display this year. If you want to see the famous Collingwood Lights in their majestic glory, Covering the Corridor (RIP) captured the magic from two years ago:

Know any other great places? Let us know in the comment section.

Check out the rest of the pictures/video on our Instagram page HERE.

Happy Holidays. More Offbeat NOVA coming — stay tuned.

Offbeat NOVA Presents: NOVAcancy

By Matthew Eng, Offbeat NOVA

A long time ago, Justin Timberlake once described my hometown of Virginia Beach as “a desolate area of the world” with “nothing but strip malls and Chick-fil-A’s.” Personally, I take great offense to that. There weren’t that many Chick-fil-A’s in Virginia Beach when I grew up.

It’s true that Virginia Beach has a seemingly endless stream of retail and shopping centers along its main thoroughfare, Virginia Beach Boulevard. From the main artery of the boulevard, retail veins spring from all directions, including the most important to my childhood, Lynnhaven Parkway. About a half mile up the road from my main childhood mall and shopping area stood Toy Castle, standing alone like a mansion on a hill in a valley of mediocre retail and chain restaurants.

Since standalone toy stores have vanished in favor of small sections in larger retail stores like Wal Mart and Target, it’s hard to find a modern day comparison. When I was a kid, my mom would take me there every so often. I would go in, my ActionToy Guide in my hand, ready to pick out the latest and greatest action figure.

Formerly Toy Castle, Virginia Beach (Google Maps Screencap)

Toy Castle was definitely a place reserved for special occasions. Toy stores in the late 1980s were a paradise, and visiting one was a special treat reserved for accomplishments, like A’s on math tests. Toy Castle, however, was extra special. The large standalone building looked exactly like an old school Playmobil castle. The yellow exterior was flanked by two large turrets on either end of the building. The bottom of the structure was covered in rocks, giving the effect that the parking lot was a giant asphalt moat. The icing on the cake was the drawbridge door that led you into into its great hall of retail.

But the magic wouldn’t last. When I was a teenager, Toy Castle closed and became something entirely different: a craft store. Paul’s Arts and Crafts stayed there for a number of years until it eventually became a Salvation Army, which is still there today. Remarkably, the turreted building never drastically altered its appearance. Sure, it’s had a few paint jobs over the years, but the structure’s bones have remained intact.

This idea of retail rebirth is something that has always sparked my fascination. Businesses and restaurants close down. New businesses open, but the remnants of past establishments remain. If you look closely, you can see instances of this phenomenon all over the place. Wendy’s restaurants become a cash advance. Extinct department stores become grocery stores. Later, the extinct grocery store becomes a fitness center.

Toys R US/Aldi, Alexandria VA (2018/2020)

Fast forward to the present day. I have lived in northern Virginia for almost seven years, and in that time I have already seen a bevy of businesses change hands, leaving the shell of their former selves to molt and emerge from their cocoons as something entirely different. It would be an interesting project to document these businesses. Although the buildings may not hold the mythical grandeur that Toy Castle once held in my heart, it’s important to tell the story of the changing landscape of the area. It’s also a great way to get feedback from viewers reading this who know of a place that has undergone such a restoration. Surely there are hundreds of places in the area that have closed down and reopened as something else. We would love to hear your feedback.

We are starting this new series on our Instagram, so make sure to check it out and check back often. Although we are documenting these buildings now, they might give us ideas for future posts of Offbeat NOVA. We are always looking for new ideas, and the list is ever-expanding.

Follow us as we update content in the next week and beyond with the hashtags #offbeatnova and #NOVAcancy. The first few we will debut this week are naturally in our neck of the woods in Fairfax County, but we’d love to hear what you have to say. Drop us a line in our Instagram DM or email us at offbeatnova@gmail.com. Enjoy NOVAcancy!