Tour of Christmas home set for Saturday and Sunday in Newberg

   The challenge is basic, if not easy: take a moderately sized suburban home and stuff it with the trappings of Christmas. Wrap it up in a bow and offer tours to the public as a fund-raiser for a worthy cause.
   Darlyn Adams’ home is such a house. A quick look at the sheer number of Christmas items inside Adams’ home suggests she’s been at this for some time: 10,000 lights, more than 200 stuffed animals, 40 wreaths, 60 trees and the 182 boxes that take up one-third of her three-car garage when the holiday season is over.
   Adams began the effort five years ago to raise money for her (pardon the pun) pet project: a drive to construct a new animal shelter in Newberg. The quest began after she discovered what she characterized as the abhorrent conditions in which stray dogs and cats were living in the city’s shelter on South Blaine Street. Adams immediately approached the Newberg City Council seeking permission to begin a fund-raising effort to construct a new shelter.
   Adams’ goal is $300,000 in cash and in-kind donations. With any luck this year’s effort will raise the fund to more than $140,000, she said. Last year 90 people toured the home and funneled $1,632 to the fund-raising effort.
   Adams will open her home this weekend for tours from noon to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 131 Johanna Court. In addition to the house tour there will be a bake sale of pies, cakes, cookies and animal treats. Adults are admitted for $5, seniors $3.50 and children 12 and under free.
   Walk in the front door of Adams’ home, past the snowman that begins singing when it senses motion and into her living room and Adams’ effort is immediately noticed. She has left unadorned an easy chair and a couch for her husband, Paul, but everything else is covered with Christmas regalia.
   The three bedrooms? The same. Two full-sized bathrooms? The Adams’ can’t take baths as the tub is full of stuffed animals, but the shower is open. Even the toilet seats are covered in festive colors. She began decorating this year on Oct. 15; she completed the task Monday.
   Adams began collecting Christmas items in 1957 while living with her first husband in San Pedro, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles. She restocks her warehouse of items via garage sales, especially for things that don’t stand up well to wear.
   “I am constantly replacing lights and ornaments,” she said, adding that Trixee, a dog of questionable lineage rescued from a California animal shelter, often dispenses with ornaments with her tail.
   Beyond replacing ornaments, the expense of creating the Christmas wonderland consists of higher electric bills (it typically increases from $60 to 70 a month to $90 to $100 a month), as well as the inconvenience of not being able to operate the microwave oven when the Christmas lights are all plugged in (it trips the circuit breaker).
   “I never know how I’m going to decorate a room ...,” Adams said, characterizing her design method as a stream of consciousness style that usually is applied on an item by item basis.
   After its completed, after the boxes are empty and relegated to the garage to await the January take down of Christmas fare, Adams said she will admire her work. “I will go to room to room and wonder how the hell I got all this stuff.”