Scott Long rests on a swing as he and his family decorate their home in Arlington, Virginia, on November 23. Photo / Matt McClain, The Washington Post
Scott Long was having one of his “good days” and wanted to take advantage of the energy he had to hang Christmas decorations outside.
He made sure the right cables were in place for the lights.
He checked that a miniature hot-air balloon carrying Santa Claus was receiving enough power to illuminate.
After 30 minutes, his wife grew worried and told him to go inside to rest.
Twinkling holiday lights brighten blocks at this time of year, and in many suburbs there are homes that delight with their dazzling decor.
Long’s house in Northern Virginia, the United States, is one of those.
For more than two decades, he has gone all out, transforming his property into a winter wonderland for his neighbours.
This year, he was determined to do that again, because he didn’t know if he would get another chance.
Long has been battling stage four cancer, and he expects this to be his last Christmas.
Legacies are sometimes forged in ways that are publicly recognised, but more often, they are shaped through actions that are quietly appreciated.
People of all ages have appreciated Long’s efforts over the years.
They have taken pictures among the decorations on his property and used them for their holiday cards.
They have rerouted their night-time walks to take their children and grandchildren by his house. Groups have driven to his street from nearby counties to gaze in awe at his work.
Long, 60, decided he wanted to bring some Christmas cheer to his neighbours at least one more time.
So he has spent the past few months stringing lights and hanging wreaths while fighting through the effects of weekly, eight-hour chemotherapy sessions that have left him fatigued and dizzy.
When he hasn’t been able to keep up the pace needed to get the decorations up by December 25, friends and family members have stepped in to help.
After Long went inside, his wife, Joyce, 61, their youngest son, Billy, 24, and a school friend who was lending a hand got to work stringing up the icicle lights.
The trio were stretching a dozen or so cords that were attached to nearby trees on one end and spanning them over the driveway to fasten to the roof on the other end. The lights would turn the space into a grotto.
Once that was done, attention went to the handmade, red-and-gold Santa Claus sled that usually takes up the end of the driveway. Everyone went inside, and Long used a pencil to sketch the layout from memory onto a slip of paper.
“The sled goes this way,” the former independent contractor explained to his son. “Twelve feet from here.”
Billy nodded, asked a few questions and then ate a bowl of hot food his mother whipped up.
Long repositioned himself in the chair, took a sip of cola and winced from the pain in his throat – one of the new ailments he was dealing with these days.
Long and his wife can never remember how to pronounce the name of his cancer. The doctors call it cholangiocarcinoma. It’s rare, and it’s aggressive.
Long said he knew something was wrong early in the summer of 2024.
He had worked in construction for the past 20 years and specialised in residential projects, such as renovating kitchens or building an addition to a home. It suited his restlessness and high energy.
But extreme exhaustion and bouts of light-headedness were plaguing him while overseeing the finishing touches at a work site.
His doctor initially thought Long had acquired type two diabetes.
In a bid to improve his health, he said the doctor targeted body weight, even going so far as to prescribe Ozempic.
By August, he had developed jaundice, according to his wife, prompting a hospital stay that would alter the trajectory of the family’s life.
Nothing was adding up, he said. His doctor was desperate for answers and turned to a colleague to help pinpoint the source.
“They don’t want to call it cancer until they’re 100%,” Long said. Soon afterwards, they found a tumour in his bile duct.
When presenting a treatment plan, his oncologist used a whiteboard to diagram Long’s internal organs and how they functioned.
The basic principles of indoor plumbing came to mind, Long joked.
The doctor marked his bile duct, gallbladder, some of his small intestines and part of his pancreas for removal in a “Whipple surgery”. Long sat withdrawn for more than 20 minutes, missing the rest of the plan that was being detailed to him.
Like many cancer patients, he endured rounds of treatment and medication.
Chemo sessions. A regimen of pills – up to a dozen tablets a day. Weeks of radiation.
Despite the misery of it all, the blood work doctors analysed to determine his progress was looking “phenomenal” during those months, Long said, and he thought he was on a path to remission.
But when he returned to the Inova Schar Cancer Institute in Fairfax, Virginia, after a three-month break, blood work showed he was not in remission.
“You know it’s bad when the doctor chokes up before he even gets a sentence out to you, and all the staff wouldn’t look at you,” Long said.
He has gone forward with treatment, knowing how uncertain the future is. He and his family are preparing for the day they will have to carry on without him.
“I have to come to the realisation myself that my days with my dad are numbered,” said his son, Angus, 26, when confronting his father’s health. “What was a really big number two years ago is now not so big.”
Long’s best guess on what caused the cancer is possible exposure to some kind of toxin over years of working on construction sites.
He prefers to spend little time dwelling on that, or on the rough days ahead.
What stirred him from sleep at 3am not long ago were thoughts about the speech he had to give his sons. He knew what he had to say. “I’m dying,” he recalled, his voice shaking.
His “bragging office” is a dimly lit room with a recessed ceiling that is packed with items from moments in his life.
A case protects his collection of autographed mini hockey helmets. A ledge holds a Lego version of the International Space Station, one of his many builds around the house. On the desk lies a Salvador Dali lithograph he bought in the 1970s with his mother – who lost her own battle with cancer and told him once that “artwork is what you want it to be”.
As he sat in that room on a recent day, he said he hoped his family will save some of his cherished belongings when he is gone, and remember the stories that came with each.
The Longs have for decades had the perennial Griswold House of the Douglas Park neighbourhood, which is known for its Fourth of July parades and Halloween “trail of terror”.
Those looking at this corner of South Arlington from higher ground more than a kilometre away have spotted the glowing star that he and his sons usually hoist into a nearby oak tree, 18m in the air.
With a father in the Marine Corps, Long moved around a lot as a kid, which meant few chances to hang Christmas lights.
After he bought a house and became a dad, his young boys inspired him to use his electrical skills to build a sign that asked Santa to land on their roof.
In the years that followed, he made similar handmade decorations, such as a giant poinsettia and a logo of the family’s beloved Washington Capitals, which he usually hangs on either side of the house.
Long also added more lights, nutcracker soldiers, penguins and other figures to his display, clocking the total time to decorate the property at 300 man-hours.
“Every family has a holiday, right?” Angus said. “We’re not like a birthday household. We are very much a Christmas household.”
Other families demonstrate their holiday spirit with light shows synchronised to music, set-ups that can be sold in plug-and-play kits from big-box stores.
Residents in Douglas Park said they love Long’s authentic, “old-school” approach, as well as the interactive features – such as the Santa sleigh you can sit inside.
Some neighbours spoke fondly about using the photographs they had taken while sitting inside it for their holiday cards.
Excitement grows, some said, when the property is primed with garland, giant plastic candy canes and snowflake lights, hinting at the larger display in the works.
“For us, it’s a great time of the year, because we know that Christmas is coming and this is the house that we get to stroll by every single day,” said neighbour Sally Schoen on an evening she was passing by with her husband, Fletcher, and their 1-year-old son.
As she spoke, a car slowed down then stopped to take in the spectacle.
Inside the house, Long took another sip of his cola, sitting just a few steps away from the 6m, not-yet-decorated evergreen the family had shimmied into their living room a few days earlier.
Looking at it reminded him of the National Christmas Tree in front of the White House that he had knelt in front of 30 years ago, when he proposed to Joyce.
Long turned his attention to Billy, who was going back out to work on the display.
Long described how some of the wood planks should be cut and the number of screws it took to assemble the sled.
He praised one of the thoughts his son had about how to add more reflection for the lights.
Long’s energy was depleted for the day, and he needed to rest. But he would be out there again another day. And again soon after that.
“I will keep doing as much as I can do – every time,” he said.
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