SAVANNAH ― As Christmas curb appeal goes, Don Mathis’ house won’t appear on “The Great Christmas Light Fight” anytime soon.
The white lights twinkling from the roofline, shrubbery and a set of wire reindeer in the yard suggest a measured Yuletide gaiety. But the understated decorations belie Mathis’ Santa-sized Christmas spirit on display inside his garage door.
Every winter for the last two decades, Mathis has moved his car to the driveway to make room for his model trains and a Christmas-themed train garden. What started as a small under-the-Christmas-tree display when his children were young has morphed into a garage-stuffing metropolis in miniature that Mathis spends a month erecting each fall.
Six trains connect several snow-covered villages, a boat-filled harbor, Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood and Santa’s North Pole toy workshop. The Polar Express runs alongside another train that puffs candy cane-scented smoke from its engine while trolleys speed along an elevated shelf. Dozens of figurines, from Tiny Tim sitting atop Bob Cratchit’s shoulders to teenage ice skaters, stand among the landscape. Moving toys, such as an aerial gondola and a carnival carousel, clink and whirl.
A giddy Mathis acts as tour guide. Clad in his favorite Christmas sweater — snowmen and Christmas trees — he points out the landmarks and performs dialogue in the voices of the characters he’s assigned to each of the figurines. His Eeyore the donkey, who in the train garden’s Hundred Acre Wood has tumbled into a stream after being bounced off a bridge by Tigger the Tiger, is spot on.
“This, once it’s all set up and wired up, is magical,” Mathis said.
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Assembly required
Mathis designs the train garden “on the fly” each year, adding and subtracting features from a collection that has outgrown his garage space. He points to the garden’s original village piece, a diner bought from Walmart, and laments the absence of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Castle, which is packed away in his shed with five other boxes of train garden decorations that didn’t make the 2025 cut.
He chuckles at the irony as he recounts the garden’s origin story. He first moved the setup out from under the Christmas tree and onto a 4-by-8-foot piece of plywood when the extended family’s holiday celebration moved to his house 20 years ago. With 16 guests, all bearing gifts, he needed every inch of space under the tree but wanted to keep the train garden tradition chugging down the tracks.
Once freed from the shade of fir branches, the garden began to grow. Checking eBay and Facebook marketplace became part of Mathis’ daily routine. He also seeks out church rummage sales, where he acquired the “A Christmas Carol” decorations that are the centerpiece of this year’s display, and visits flea markets.
More recently, pieces are finding him. Last Christmas, he was profiled in the Savannah Morning New by Polly Powers Stramm, whose “Polly’s People” columns are a longtime reader favorite. The piece’s publishing led to offers from Savannahians with train garden decorations in need of a new home, including several from 82-year-old June O’Hearn, who contacted him as she prepped to move into an assisted living facility.
Those collectibles date back to the 1940s and 1950s, Mathis said.
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Children’s reaction ‘the best part’
The train garden’s expansion has continued through many life-changing events, such as a move to Georgia from Maryland in 2023 and before that a new romantic relationship. Mathis and his partner, Lori Yadin, have been together for 14 years and between them have eight grown children and 10 grandchildren.
Yadin recalls her first reaction to learning about Mathis’ Christmas tradition: “Wow.” His holiday decorative flair extends throughout the couple’s home, she said, everywhere except a garden window in the kitchen. There Yadin, who is Jewish, displays her Hanukkah decorations, including several menorahs.
“He can have the rest of the house,” she said. “Christmas gives him such joy.”
Mathis shares that Christmas spirit with his neighbors. He has no interest in turning his train garden into a money-making enterprise, and he keeps his address secret to avoid a crush of the curious outside his garage door. But his house is a popular destination this time of the year with those in the know.
He gets many repeat visitors each season. It’s why the train garden will still be spreading cheer long after he packs away his Christmas yard decorations. He typically doesn’t disassemble the garage display until February, sometimes even March.
“From the first time I put a train garden under the tree many, many years ago, the best part was the reaction of the children,” Mathis said. “It’s still my favorite.”
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Credit: Sarah Peacock
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