Aurora resident Lisa Hardekopf always looks forward to the Christmas season even though it means having thousands of cars pass her home and those of her neighbors on what is usually a quiet street.
“After all these years it’s the sense of peace it brings me as I hear the music playing outside and see the lights as cars go by,” the president of the Lehnertz Avenue Association said over the weekend about the annual drive-thru Christmas display on her street. “I don’t know how to explain to you how peaceful it is to sit at my window at night next to my Christmas tree, watching people go by slowly and listening to the music. It’s soft and gentle, and I love that feeling.”
The 74th annual Aurora drive-thru Lehnertz Avenue Christmas display opened on Sunday. It includes an array of lawn signs, cutout figures, religious and secular characters and more.
The drive-thru display runs daily from 5 to 10:30 p.m. through Jan. 2.
The Lehnertz Avenue holiday effort can be traced back to the 1950s.
“We have guys that have been doing this for years and it’s coordinating with the younger ones in terms of when they can get home from work and get a trailer somewhere to move things,” Hardekopf said about setting up the display. “We have others from around the area that know what we do and when, and they show up to help.”
Mary Gaddis, 69, said the annual holiday display is special.
“I grew up on this street and moved away for six years and moved back,” she said. “It’s about community and the true meaning of Christmas.”
Aurora resident Lisa Hardekopf, president of the Lehnertz Avenue Association, enjoys a moment on opening night of the annual drive-thru Lehnertz Avenue Christmas display in Aurora on Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (David Sharos/For The Beacon-News)
To get all the work done on the display, the Lehnertz Avenue Association has a number of committees, she said.
“Everybody is divided into committees. We have a book and candle committee, a sheep and shepherd committee, a lights on the pole committee, a Noel committee, a backdrop committee and a nativity set committee,” she said. “We need all that and we like having all the help. We put out an SOS at church and people come.”
Longtime resident Sue Gardner, 79, said she was one of those residents who needed help as her display depicting sheep and shepherds is stored in her basement “and I wasn’t going to bring it up myself,” she said.
After nearly three decades in the neighborhood, Gardner says the Lehnertz Avenue Christmas season ritual never gets old.
A display stands in a yard on Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, as part of the annual drive-thru Lehnertz Avenue Christmas display in Aurora. (David Sharos/For The Beacon-News)
“I like seeing the cars come down and I like seeing that we have an opportunity to explain what the real Christmas is,” she said. “We’re celebrating the birth of Christmas and it’s not about snowmen and reindeer and Santa Claus. He’s nice and he brings gifts, but we’re one of the few places that celebrates the real meaning of Christmas.”
While many residents on Lehnertz Avenue have a long history of living on the street, Hardekopf said that a new “member” was even added last year.
“We had somebody last year who had just moved in at Christmas time and somehow they had sheep and shepherds and we were rearranging for them trying to make sure that they got to be part of it, and letting them know – here’s how this works, here’s how you’re going to light things and your display,” she said.
Opening ceremonies, which included a very brief outdoor program due to the cold on Sunday, began just after 6 p.m. and included a blessing of the display’s nativity crib, at the northwest corner of Lehnertz Avenue and Ohio Street, by the Rev. Godwin Asuquo, pastor at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Aurora.
The 74th annual drive-thru Lehnertz Avenue Christmas display in Aurora includes a nativity scene at the northwest corner of Lehnertz Avenue and Ohio Street. (David Sharos/For The Beacon-News)
Godwin said it was his third straight year attending the event.
“I want to be part of the tradition,” he said. “It’s something that pastors from the church always wanted to be a part of there.
“I do it because I want to be part of the beautiful history of the community that I am now a part of,” he said. “It’s good to belong to that long history and be a part of that tradition. There is so much darkness and separation, and this reminds us that Jesus is the light of the world and this light brings us together.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
