SAN DIEGO — Ask anyone in the tight-knit community of University Heights, and they’ll tell you it isn’t the holidays until Edie Jacobsen is hanging lights on palm trees.
What started with Jacobsen’s one tree has now evolved into her renting a lift and doing the whole block.
“We wanted to wrap our trees and not die,” she said. “And then more people decided they wanted their trees wrapped, so that’s how this goes.”
Jacobsen is the holiday glue that holds the small neighborhood in San Diego together, although she will humbly deny it every time. Her magical touch goes way beyond lights, stretching into whimsy.
She lives in a small cul-de-sac on New York Street and started creating wooden holiday panels six years ago. Each one has a cartoon ostrich on it, her own design. It is a call back to when the area was an ostrich farm. Now, New York Street is full of feathered nods to the Big Apple, such as ostrich versions of the Statue of Liberty and the Rockettes.
“I did six the first year and then did the rest of the street over the next couple of years, and then other people started asking,” Jacobsen said.
Jacobsen begins designing the panels months in advance. She buys all the necessary materials, sketches the design and then cuts it into shape. She asks each panel recipient to volunteer a minimum of one hour to paint the panel, but said most people spend much more than that.
Jacobsen’s nearby neighbor Steve Doster has been waiting all year to get his first panel.
“I thought, ‘That’s pretty cool. How do I get one of those?’” Doster said. “So I text Edie and just asked her, begged her if I could get on the list for the next season, and it’s already here.”
Jacobsen personalizes each design to each neighbor. Doster lives on Louisiana Street, so they created a New Orleans-style design, complete with beads on ostriches and his dog in the window.
Back on New York Street, Adam Graham and Monica Lanctot believe their decorations wouldn’t be complete without Jacobsen’s special touch. Their panel depicts an ostrich on Broadway, complete with lights.
“Everybody’s happy and laughing and that’s what it’s all about,” Graham said. “Edie helped bring that to light. I think that’s really special.”
Jacobsen estimates it takes between 12 and 15 hours to make each panel. As of this year, she has created more than 30 panels for her University Heights neighbors.