700 Santas in One Small Bar

(In Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle)

Digging out boxes from the attic, untangling strings of lights, trying not to cut yourself on smashed glass ornaments: Decorating for the holidays is often a complicated project. Still, most people don't seem to mind. Take Garry McLain, for example.

To decorate his Hayes Valley bar, Marlena's, which is about the size of a one-bedroom apartment, it took four people five days to install tens of thousands of dollars' worth of decorations. And they don't even have a tree.

Instead, there are 700 Santa Claus dolls. Most are in display cases lining all the walls inside the bar and on the semi-enclosed patio smoking area, though some are way too big to fit behind plastic. Those stand guard in the corners of the room. Others hang from the ceiling, and a few dozen are stacked around the bar or riding a gold mechanical Ferris wheel behind it. Most of Marlena's front windows are covered up to make room for them, sacrificing sunlight for Santa Claus.

Read the rest of the story about Marlena's 700 Santas here.