Volunteer elves on Saturday helped Bigfork get all dressed up for Christmas

The Daily Inter Lake

Street Closed, Elves At Work," said the sign at the bridge crossing the Swan River.

Teen elves, baby elves, gray-haired elves - each working with a 33-degree shiver.

Little kid elves ran, skipped and sang.

More than 200 Bigfork folks in Santa caps made up Saturday morning's gang.

There were elves in hard hats, elves with red bows.

Even a Santa-capped dachshund named Fred sniffed everyone's toes.

Elves served hot chocolate, and they served schnapps.

And Bigfork was decorated for Christmas from sidewalks to rooftops.

This is an annual community get-together for Bigfork - decorating the hamlet for Christmas as a huge Saturday project as "elves."

Elves in blue jeans. No tights.

Even the organizers are unsure how long the village has been doing this, except that in began sometime in the early 1980s.

"It's quite a show," Charlie Jantzen said as he walked along Electric Avenue and Commerce Street with his wife, Betty, and dog Fred - all in Santa caps, taking a break from the work.

Charlotte French, lugging a sack full of red bows, said: "This is our village and this is so beautiful. … There's just great, great community spirit in this town."

"If nobody did it, it wouldn't be Bigfork," said Caroline Solomon.

Three longtime Bigfork residents - Frank Crain, Edd Blackler and Don Thomson - sat around in the early 1980s and brainstormed "wouldn't it be fun if we put Christmas trees up and down the street," Blackler recalled.

One or two dozen people took up the elf theme to decorate the streets under Crain's leadership.

Each year, more people heard about the effort through grapevines and joined. More and more decorations were donated. Almost every business and organization in Bigfork eventually joined. The event became somewhat more and more organized.

"It's organized chaos. … We can decorate the whole town in three hours," said Doug Averill, Bigfork's current "secretary of decorations."

That title - "secretary of decorations" - fits in with Crain, the original organizer and retired U.S. Air Force colonel, creating a military structure for decorating the village. People were divided into flights and wings to tackle their specific tasks.

Then after the decorating is done, everyone lines up to get promoted.

Someone finishing his or her first Saturday of decorating gets a second lieutenant's gold bar. After the second year of decorating, that person gets a first lieutenant's silver bar. Third year: Captain. Then major, lieutenant colonel and full colonel. After 20 years, a participant gets a general's star.

About half wore their ranks Saturday on their red-and-white Santa caps.

Years ago, a couple of retired major generals living in Bigfork had to start over again as elfish second lieutenants.

Saturday was the first time in many years that 82-year-old Guy Lauverdeau and his wife Tony did not drive back and forth in a golf cart to pass out schnapps and hot chocolate to the working elves. Others had to take over Saturday because he died of cancer a few months ago.

Solomon said: "He loved to kiss all the women."

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com