Deck houses first, then get to the yachts

On eve of the boat parade, officials give decorating awards to homes ringing the harbor.While Newport Beach’s Christmas Boat Parade is just beginning, those who decorated their homes and businesses for the accompanying Ring of Lights competition can sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labors -- which in some cases are awards from event organizers.

It took an untold number of lights to festoon homes and businesses that ring the bay, and a panel from the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce and its Commodores Club spent about five hours on a boat to judge the entries.

The 19 winners were announced Tuesday. Everyone with property fronting the harbor is invited to participate, and the competition is getting more intense, Ring of Lights chairman Duncan Forgey said.

“We have a number of people who continuously win, and the only reason they do is they absolutely try harder and harder every year,” he said. “There’s a difference between just decorating your house and decorating your house for competition.”

For Balboa Island resident Donna DiBari, who won the sponsor’s sweepstakes award, that difference involved wrapping her two large palm trees with alternating strings of white and colored rights so they look like candy canes, and putting a mechanical Santa on her balcony.

She used white lights on the smaller trees in her garden and created a “100” in 3-foot-tall numerals covered with glitter in honor of the city’s centennial.

Over the 20 years DiBari has been decorating her home for the holidays, there’s been one continuous presence: the Santa.

“Twenty years ago I talked Roger’s Gardens out of their cute Santa Claus,” she said. “It was on display; it wasn’t for sale.”

The Balboa Pavilion also incorporated the centennial into the decorations, and for those efforts it was given the award for best presentation for the “Cen- tennial Celebration of Lights” theme.

But this year was special for the pavilion because it’s also celebrating its 100th birthday, said Bob Black, vice president of the Balboa Pavilion Co.

It took workers about three weeks to put up lights on the pavilion, which already is illuminated with 1,400 lights year-round.

But the crowning glory might be the Christmas tree formation made of red lights stretching down from the flagpole atop the building’s cupola, Black said.

“Everywhere you look we have lights up,” he said.

Other winners of the 2005 Ring of Lights competition are:

* Sweepstakes award for best humor and originality: Dennis and Pat Vitarelli, 140 S. Bayfront

* Sweepstakes award for lights and animation: Jim and Peggy Rich, 802 S. Bayfront