Terry O’Sullivan, who died suddenly last December, had a singular gift for keeping the holiday spirit alive in Leaside.
For over 20 years his jerry-rigged 10-metre-high lighted display, topped with a bright electric star and complete with nativity at its base, reminded passersby of the true meaning of the Christmas season. Not just a feast for the eyes, the display also includes music. Mostly carols but also – after the 25th – tunes like Perry Como’s holiday hits.
The seasonal lawn display is unique, as was Terry himself. Born in 1943, the same year his family bought their home on MacNaughton Road, he attended St. Anselm’s School and later St. Michael’s College School, helping to pay the tuition fee by caddying for his dad, who was an avid golfer. After years of study at St. Augustine’s Seminary by the Scarborough Bluffs, Terry was ordained a Catholic priest. Some of his very first duties were officiating at his brother’s marriage and his sister’s funeral.
But Terry’s order, Scarboro Foreign Missions, was dedicated to overseas work, so he headed to the Amazonas region of Brazil in 1970 where he would stay for 12 years. He arrived in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, nicknamed the Paris of the Tropics. Manaus is an Indigenous word meaning Mother of the Gods. The large territory he serviced included 17 communities, which he visited regularly by boat, traversing the mighty Amazon in all sorts of weather, including monsoons, to marry, christen and bury his parishioners. He stood with the poor in confronting social issues such as land and water rights and community development.
In the late ’80s Terry left the priesthood, but not the Church and continued doing lay pastoral work. He married in the ’90s. His wife Colleen remembers that when they travelled to the Amazon, Terry was so excited to “show me the paths that he had walked.” Part of the trip was one week on a small wooden river boat with hammocks as beds. Terry’s knowledge of Portuguese returned in no time, so they had a memorable trip reuniting with his old friends and making many new ones.
As life often does, Terry’s came full circle; he and Colleen found themselves living in Terry’s childhood home in Leaside. When asked “why a small creche nestled against a huge tree with music on the front lawn?” Colleen explains, “It was around 1999 when St. Anselm’s decided not to display a nativity scene outside the church. Terry thought that was a shame, so he decided to make his own humble contribution to celebrate the season.”
“Make” being the operative word. Colleen explains that Terry was frugal and practical – common traits among war babies. He was also a resourceful handyman. So, he used scraps of wood, two very long windsurfing poles, hundreds of feet of Christmas lights and figurines for the creche found at the dollar store to create the display. The speaker was his dad’s. He had to climb up the tall pine tree to get the strings of lights just right. Colleen jokes that it was her job “to be on the ground ready to call 911 should he ever fall out of the tree!”
Setup happens “on a nice day in November” with the music that animates the scene switched on during the later afternoons and early evenings just before and after Christmas. Colleen says that “kids have grown up with it” and that in a quarter century there has only ever been one noise complaint, a fact Terry used to say was a sign of its success. “A few years back we found a COBS gift basket at our door. With it was a note from a young woman who was in one of Terry’s confirmation classes at St. Anselm’s. She thanked us, saying she and her sister loved seeing and hearing the display when they were leaving Mass at Christmas time,” recalls Colleen.
Despite his death last year, neighbours, family and friends helped Colleen activate the brilliant display. This year the tradition will live on as a testament to Terry’s love of his community – and of the season.
