When Balboa Island resident Shirley Pepy walks outside her door around the holidays, she's met with awe and gratitude from passersby. "Thank you for doing this!" remarks a woman in a furry hooded coat. Children stop and take pictures with their parents' cell phones. Eyes light up. Time stops. Nostalgia sets in. And for a moment, all is right with the world. All it takes, is an entire year of planning.
Pepy is grateful for the "Oohs" and "Ahhs" from onlookers, but admits she doesn't do it alone. "I don't come up with this," she explains. "It's just my lawn."

"We have no idea why we do this," says Dillon Wells. He, along with his mother Deanne Lemire, father Dan Lemire, and aunt Darcy Hafner spent nearly a year drafting up and executing the lawnscape for Pepy's home. "This isn't anyone's regular job, so we don't have a workshop for it. We've got penguins coming out all over the place." In other words, there is no formal workshop to build Santa's workshop. Wells and his family have been working with Pepy for the last 5 years. "It's only been in the last year or so that we've really started to enjoy the process," he says. Later, he corrects himself as to why he and his family work so hard on this temporary installation, "One time I saw a 13 year-old boy stop his skateboard, stare, and go 'Whoa.' I mean if you can get a teenager to stop what they're doing, you know you're doing something special."