By Karuga Koinange
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
As a kid, Joshua Lamont was awed by Baltimore’s famed “Miracle on 34th Street” and its twinkling Christmas lights that blanket this famous block. But he felt a little left out too, since a dreidel or a Star of David was a rare sight for a Jewish kid like him.
Now the 28-year-old Baltimore native lives on the block. And he’s made it his mission to bring a little Hanukkah—the Jewish Festival of Lights—to the Hampden Christmas celebration.
“I wanted to be a part of this experience,” Lamont said. “I wanted to make a Hanukkah house on this street.”
This is the 72nd year of the “Miracle on 34th Street” tradition, and Lamont began decorating his house immediately after Halloween.
A small Star of David flag stands at attention at the porch gate. Blue and white lights slither around the railing leading to his front door. A cottony fabric carpets the front yard, simulating snow. And an eight-foot inflatable polar bear spinning a dreidel towers over a silver menorah equipped with LED bulbs. The decorations are on a timer, set to turn on at 6 p.m. and off at 11 p.m.
“I think it’s great,” said Rachel Brooks, a 28-year-old Reservoir Hill resident. “It’s more representative of what Baltimore has always been. It’s good for people to be able to be who they are in as vibrant a time as the holidays with giant lights and a bear holding a dreidel.”
This now-famous Baltimore tradition started over seven decades ago at 726 West 34th Street, in the house where Darlene Hosier grew up and still lives in. The 68-year-old remembers her family decorating the entire house every year, spraying styrofoam balls to disguise them as Christmas ornaments and constructing train gardens in the basement.
“It meant everything to me because I thought I was really fortunate with how much they loved Christmas,” Hosier said. “Christmas was very special, not for the gifts, but for the family being together.”
She married Bob Hosier in 1983, and that year he took the decorations to another level by adding sleighs and a flurry of lights to the exterior of their home.
“I don’t know if he liked me or if he liked the fact that I decorated,” Hosier said with a chuckle. “I gave him a whole lot of house to decorate.”
As the tradition spread across the street and down the block, crowds of Christmas pilgrims began to gather. It’s both a blessing and a challenge for the neighborhood.
“It’s a tradeoff,” said Bob Hosier, 61. “It shows people what Hampden is. It’s a little bit of a problem for 30 days for some of the neighbors parking and driving, but the overall good of it outweighs the little bit of inconvenience we have for those 30 days.”
Residents pay the expenses for lights and decorations out of pocket with no help from BGE or the city.
“My bills can be $600 that month, but it doesn’t matter because that’s why I sit in the dark the rest of the year,” Darlene Hosier said.
This celebration became more popular once the Maryland State Lottery approached the Hosiers with an idea for a commercial in 2001. Visitors rolled in from as near as Cold Spring Lane to as far as Tanzania after the commercial aired.
This year, visitors can once again marvel at the Hosier’s collection of oversized candy canes and snowmen. And then perhaps they’ll stroll to the Hanukkah house at number 717 where, if they’re lucky, they’ll catch a glimpse of Lamont in his Hanukkah suit lighting a menorah to add a little more brightness to the season.
“I’m glad to be that symbol for kids,” Lamont said. “To be able to come out and be like ‘hey, that’s my holiday represented on this very, very famous block.’”