Drivers hope to pass Yakima Valley Christmas truck tradition to future generations | Local

Mike Murri has spent 40 years as a truck driver hauling cargo back and forth across the state. It wasn’t until he outfitted his truck with hundreds of feet worth of Christmas lights and drove down the main road of every city in the Yakima Valley that trucking became more about the drive than the destination.

For Murri, decorating his G.S. Long truck every year has become a beloved tradition. As the years have passed, he’s been joined by friends, like Coca-Cola truck driver Butch Jarvis. For nearly 20 years, Murri has been one of the main organizers for the lighted truck parades kids in the Valley have grown up with over the years.

His truck, with Santa’s sleigh in tow, has been to every corner in the county, from Sunnyside to Selah. The trucks are mainstays at official community parades during November and December. They also visit neighborhoods on a rotating schedule to spread Christmas cheer.

As the years have passed, Murri has convinced more of his friends to join him. Now, enough time has passed that a second generation of lighted truck drivers has begun to emerge.

While standing in the parking lot of Selah Middle School a half hour before a parade, Murri motions to a young woman standing by a Ford F-150 hauling Snoopy’s dog house.

“How old were you when you started riding in the trucks?” Murri asked.

“Since I was 9,” responded Lilie Esqueda, who is now 32.

“So why do I do it? She’s a prime example,” Murri said. “This is one of my second generationers who now has her own truck.”

Esqueda is just one of the thousands of Yakima County residents who have fallen in love with the lighted trucks over the years. Like Murri, she wants to keep the tradition alive, even if its means hours worth of work uncoiling hundreds of yards of lights and taping them down every year.

The Yakima Herald-Republic met up with Murri and his friends to discuss the history of the lighted trucks in the area, their reasons for going out year after year and what it takes to get their trucks in parade condition every year.

How did this tradition start?

Mike Murri: Well we got the design idea out of a children’s book. We saw this drawing of a truck with lights on it and we enlarged it and said “we’re going to do this. It all started with parades. Then one night I took the truck out and drove around a neighborhood and Butch called me and told me he wanted to go through neighborhoods too with his sister. Then we got Luis and Carlos and some other guys came along and so we started this Yakima Valley Christmas truck parade.

Now it’s been 17 years since we started driving in neighborhoods.

Butch Jarvis: For me, growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the Bank of Yakima had a truck with Santa Claus lit up and that gave me the idea. Our trucks now bring me back to when I was a kid.

How long does it take to decorate the trucks?

Murri: About a month. It’s like putting a tail on the donkey, I pick a place to start taping the lights and go from there. I think there are about seven football fields worth of tape (about 2,100 feet) on the truck to get it all on. Butch uses Scotch tape but I use masking tape. I don’t know exactly how many lights are on the truck, but they usually last about seven years. The lights on the hood go quicker. I replace them about every three years.

Do you have a favorite city or neighborhood to drive through?

Murri: Not really, they’re all fun.

These trucks can take a long time to decorate and you commit a lot of time in December to driving them. Why do you do it?

Murri: Well, that G.S. Long truck (agricultural company), it’s designed to go out and spread Christmas cheer, that’s it. It’s about making all the people and the kids happy.

Jarvis: I got a phone call this morning. It was a lady from Cle Elum. She asked if I was the guy that drove the Coke truck and I said yes. She said I made her family’s Christmas. All I did was stop in Cle Elum while driving the truck to give away these three little stuffed Christmas polar bears.

She told me her kids never got to meet their great-grandpa, but their great-grandpa worked for Coke for 33 years over in Seattle. That’s a die-hard Coke family. That’s why I do it.