Flashback to 1983: Copeland's Christmas display

Last year, I wrote a short tale about Al Copeland's notorious Christmas light display, and what I knew about its history. Go read it if you want to know the story behind the photos I'm about to share. To update that story -- in the past year, Copeland (the founder of Popeye's Fried Chicken, among other things) died in March. His family is keeping the light display at his old lakefront house this year, and then will donate the decorations to Lafreniere Park to display there. This Flickr photo gives you an idea of what the lights looked like in 2007.

But I haven't seen the lights since they made a guest appearance at the Louisiana State Capitol in 1990. I do, however, have photos from the one time I visited Copeland's home display with a camera: 1983. And since I realized that the top search terms on this site for this month have been related to Copeland and his lights, I figured it was time to share the photos.

The snowman in the photo at the top was, if I remember correctly, one of the most memorable parts of the display, one that appeared year after year. I distinctly recall the "Merry Christmas" on the snow shovel he's carrying, even from the later State Capitol display. Copeland also had a big "Merry Christmas Y'all" in lights that I don't seem to have captured on film, but I've got other photos after the jump.

I took these pictures in 1983 on a trip to see the lights with a bunch of other teenagers from my church's CYO group (Catholic Youth Organization). I didn't have a fabulous camera, and it's incredible to me that I still had the photos tucked away somewhere. Let's start with Rudolph, another perennial favorite.

That's Copeland's house in the background. He would decorate every window with little scenes of elves and Santa and toys and that kind of thing. Here's a closer look at the Santa on the ground floor:

Next to this display was a large Nativity scene:

Even the second-floor windows had little scenes, although I'm not entirely sure what these are, apart from the Santa in red on the left:

Finally, here's one of several ginormous angels that dwarfed the wall around part of Copeland's home:

The lights seem so primitive compared to the 2007 photo I linked to earlier, but they have a homier feeling that I prefer to the Vegas-like contemporary display. I'd love to see the lights one more time, but I suspect all of the decorations in the above photo are long gone.

Posted at December 12, 2008 10:04 PM