Sunday, December 26, 2004

America’s Christmas Village Soon To Sprout

In keeping with spirit of the season, ARN&R sought out a story that would warm the cockles of our readers’ hearts.  When we could not find that story I recalled a piece I read on the AP wire and decided just to talk to the same people they did.  With my pride in my pocket I boarded a jet a few days before Christmas and headed to the state with the most unwanted pregnancies -- Texas.

Lone Star investor Wallace Westbrook is working on the final preparation stages of his dream, America’s Christmas Village.  The property will consist of a wedding chapel, RV Park, time share homes and Capital Hill, which will consists of full-size recreations of each state’s governor’s mansion.  It will be like a living, breathing Thomas Kincade painting, full of the same lust for a “simpler time” that existed only in Strom Thurmond’s mind.

I recently sat down with Westbrook and discussed his plans for turning Arkansas woodland into a way to earn money through Jesus.  “We are very excited about the project,” Wallace beamed.  “What we are doing has never been done before.  Outside of Branson, where else in America can you be married, have your honeymoon in an RV and have breakfast with Santa Claus all in one place?” 

What pleased Wallace most about the concept was the fact that America’s Christmas Village will be rooted in the spirit of Dickens’ Christmas classic A Christmas Carol.  He said, “It is great because only the best part of Victorian society will be represented.  We don’t worry about the 90% of the population that lived in abject poverty -- we prefer to concentrate on the 10% that could afford to have nice Christmases.”

Before we closed for the day, I asked Wallace about the overt homosexual tones found on his website.  He pretended not to know what I was talking about, but Victorian fashion shows, Santa receiving a reach-around and Resident Bear “Father Christmas” all invoked a serious man-love overtone to me.  While Wallace contended that there were no Gay Santas on-site, he said gays and lesbians were welcome as long as “they accepted Christ as their savior and made a charitable contribution to the park as a way to say ‘thank you’ for saving their souls.”

Wallace feels that God spoke to him after surgery to create Christmas Village.  He said that the park will be filled with God’s love and reflect timeless wisdom found in the Bible, such as Psalm 137:9: “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” 

Amen and Merry Christmas.

--FMB