Inflating the holiday spirit

One afternoon, while cruising the aisle at the neighborhood Costco, an inflated snowman holding onto a tree, while holding onto Santa Claus caught doctor Gary Gropper’s eye.

He thought the concept was “pretty neat” so he bought the inflatable, took it home and put it in his front yard.

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Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com

Gary Gropper, an Atlanta neurosurgeon, has more than 60 inflatable decorations in his yard.

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Gropper’s heart danced every time he looked at the smile on Santa’s and the snowman’s face.

The following year he found two more smiling inflatable at an end of the season sale.

Each year, he found himself buying one or two more until finally the neurosurgeon who fixes people’s brains was warming hearts too.

Today, about seven years since he bought his first figure in 2001, the 56-year-old father of four has enough inflatables to cover his entire front yard on Winall Down Road in Atlanta’s Brookhaven neighborhood.

“I sort of got addicted,” Gropper said.

That might be the understatement of the year.

There’s a menorah, Mickey Mouse, reindeer, Noah and his ark, on an airplane — more than 60 Christmas and Hanukkah-themed inflatables in all.

Some have pop-up features, some with carousels, some move. All of them have smiles on their faces.

Some people think the display is tacky; some a visual speed bump, but kids love it hands down. Some adults do, too.

Carolyn Layfield, of Atlanta, said she was cutting through Gropper’s neighborhood last week en route to Hastings nursery when she happened upon the display.

“I was startled by this scene of color,” said Layfield, 70. “They were just everywhere, everywhere.”

Layfield said she immediately thought of her grandchildren, Caroline and Turner Cravens.She stopped by on her way to get a closer look and last Sundayreturned with Caroline and Turner.

“This is awesome,” the siblings shouted as they moved from one inflatable to the next. “This is awesome.”

Gropper told them he might have to put inflatables on the roof next year.

“We were very lucky that we happened to stumble upon it,’ said Layfield. “It was colorful, there was movement, and it was an exciting part of Christmas.”

Caroline Noojin, visiting from North Carolina, stopped by, too, after her granddaughter, 3-year-old Sara Noojin, spotted the display earlier in the week.

“I had no idea how big it was,” said Noojin, 66.

As Noojin and Carolina settled in at the curb, Gropper started to descend the driveway with a smile on his face.

Would you like to get out and get a photo with your granddaughter, he asked?

I’d love to, said Noojin.

They posed first with Santa, then with Mickey Mouse and Noah and his ark.

“I mean it is just absolute total wonderland,” said Noojin. “I felt like a little girl all over again.”

In many ways, Gary Gropper, born into a Jewish family from Chattanooga, is a big kid who loves Christmas as much as he does people.

But this passion for inflatables is by no means just about or limited to the Christian holiday. Halloween, Easter, Valentines Day, Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day and Georgia football games also inspire displays.

The magnitude of the display isn’t what impresses Gropper. The thing that moves him, he said, is being able to create a space for others to enjoy.

“I sort of feel like Walt Disney,” he said, “walking around seeing everybody with a smile on their face.”