Decking the Halls for a Worthy Cause

Holiday Spirit Shines Bright For a Cause

By Arianne Aryanpur (Contact)

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Rhoda Matts has far too many holiday decorations to store them in her basement. She keeps the boxes in a rented storage unit and begins moving them to her Sterling house in early November. The boxes are filled with hundreds of unusual ornaments, lights and holiday displays that Matts has made or collected over the past 40 years.

For two decades, Matts has filled every room in her three-story home with these elaborate creations during the holiday season. But this week, the public has been invited in to see her collection of more than 800 ornaments and 40 Christmas trees, both real and artificial.

For the second year in a row, Matts is having an open house to raise money to combat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The idea was born from a chance meeting between Matts and Kathy Chrisman, a Potomac Falls High School teacher who lost her mother to ALS four years ago. Not long after the death, a friend of Chrisman’s brought her to Matts’s home to see the decorations, hoping it would lift Chrisman’s spirits. The friend, Joni Ulsh, was Matts’s neighbor.

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Upstairs in Rhoda Matts' Sterling home is this holiday scene, which she and her mother decorated. The decorations, which are throughout Rhoda's home, are for an ALS fundraiser that will be open to the public from Dec. 21 to 22. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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This scene, a Jerusalem city, took Matts four years to make. Except for the figurines and baskets, the entire city was made from recycled trash. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Potomac Falls high school students (from left) Alyssa Reinecke, 17, Monique Bouchard, 17, and Nakisha Carter, 18, will help Matts in the fundraiser. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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As you enter Matts' home, the holiday decorations along the stairway are some of the first things you see. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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One of Rhoda Matts' favorite decorations is a green, jeweled ornament called the Imperial Palace. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Matts, pictured here in her kitchen, among her many ornaments. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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“When I first walked in four years ago, I thought it was better than any Christmas store I’d ever been in,” Chrisman recalled.

She later suggested the open house as a way to raise awareness about ALS, which causes degeneration of the nerve cells that control muscle movement. Chrisman’s marketing students have helped her with the project and will be on hand to distribute information about the disease and accept donations to the ALS Association.

Chrisman said the public tours are also a chance for others to share the joy she felt when she first saw the colorful array of holiday ornaments and lights.

Matts, who is in her 60s, said she has been spreading holiday cheer since she was a child.

“I always loved Christmas, even when I was a little girl,” she said. “I was the only kid who got excited about the tree and not the presents under the tree. For me, there’s a spiritual beauty to it.”

Matts began collecting and making decorations when she was in her 20s, a hobby she continued after getting married and having two children. Until several years ago, she also worked two jobs for the federal government.

“People always asked me how I had time” to make the decorations, Matts said. “I didn’t really have a lot of time. I guess I’m hyper. I couldn’t ever really sit in front of the TV, so I was always making things.”

Matts’s home is a testament to that work. Her most elaborate ornament is made of more than 5,000 jeweled pieces, she says, and took several weeks. Many of her ornaments are more than 30 years old.

Matts displays a life-size papier-mâché Santa Claus on her patio. Along two walls of the basement, she has installed a representation of a village in the early Christian era. The village display is made entirely of recycled material. She used foam to fashion some of the buildings, burned-down candles to stand in as pillars and drinking straws to create the roofs.

“It’s my crowning glory,” Matts said of the display, which took four years to finish.

As for the trees, many have their own theme. There’s a penguin tree, a Star Trek tree, a sports tree and a beach tree.

“I like the beach, so I like the beach tree,” Chrisman said. “But there’s really something for everyone to see.”

The open house is from 1 to 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday at 234 Markwood Dr. in Sterling. Refreshments will be served. Admission is free, but donations to the ALS Association are encouraged.

Tagged: christmas

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