The Fight Before Christmas (2021) - full transcript

[man] ♪ Jingle bells
Ji-Ji-Ji-Jingle bells ♪

♪ Jingle all the way ♪

♪ What fun to ride and sing
In a one-horse open sleigh ♪

So, we're at the North Pole storage.

This is where we keep
all of our Christmas stuff.

We have millions of lights
and trees and penguins. [laughs]

These guys used to pull
Santa Claus's sleigh

on my roof of my house in Los Angeles
when I was a little boy.

These were also at my parents' house
when I was a kid.

It's almost like recreating my childhood.

I wanted to take part in this film because
it just seemed like a fun opportunity.



Like, I mean, how many people
ever get to be in a film?

I had a lot of people tell me
not to be in this film, believe it or not.

Because what they'll do is
they'll make you look like a crazy person.

-[clattering]
-Yes. Oh, you are gonna love this.

[laughs]

And I'm just like, look, a lot of people
think I'm crazy to begin with.

I don't really care.

I come in here and it brings me happiness.
And I bring my kids.

But all this stuff
sits in here year after year.

I am the only American...

Probably the only person in the world

who has been banned by a federal court
from decorating for Christmas.

I don't need these things
to have Christmas,

but the fact that they would try and
take this away when we live in America…



I'm not gonna let that happen.

[bells jingling]

Christmas tree time! Let's go!

Yay!

[laughs] Aw.

[girl] Santa Claus!

[man] We'll see Santa Claus
after we get the tree, okay?

-Come on, buddy!
-[boy grunts]

Yeah, go, go. Let's do it.

Now, I heard the best ones are down here.

This is for sure it.
Look, it's even got a beam of light.

-[woman laughs]
-[man] Look at this, you guys.

Do you think it's full enough?

-Honey, it's too big for the dining room.
-[man] No, I'll make it work.

[woman] I think we need to
scale it down a little bit.

-This is the one.
-No, it's not.

-This is it.
-Honey…

It's not gonna fit in our house.

[man] I know. But just listen to me.

-If you love me...
-I'm not doing this.

If you love me,
you'll let me get the big tree.

[sighs] He never listens.

-[man] Daddy's Rudolph.
-[girl laughs]

[woman] Can you give Rudolph a hug?

[man]
I love Christmas more than life itself.

Some people call me Clark Griswold.
Accurate.

Some people call me the Christmas Lawyer.
Definitely.

And some people call me Mr. Christmas.

We've got most of the Christmas lights up.
We've got 'em about every six inches.

Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation.
An American classic.

Everybody, come out quick!
Look at the lights! [laughs]

[Jeremy]
He's a little bit of a hero of mine.

That was the kind of decorating style
that I had in mind,

just sort of cover my entire house.

[Jeremy] ♪ …the angels did say ♪

[grunts] Yikes.

[woman] Is he on the roof?

In fall of 2014,
Jeremy started decorating the home.

There were kids on their bicycles,
jaws dropping,

watching Jeremy on the roof
in October putting up Christmas lights.

[Jeremy] At the same time
that I'm beginning this operation,

I found my robot cotton-candy machine,
Robie the Robot.

But it hadn't worked in 30 years.

So after tinkering,
I made the robot come to life.

[beeps]

It had been given to me
by my grandfather Jack.

And this was the one thing
that I had from him after he passed away.

He was in the silent film movies
at the very, very start of Hollywood.

And he would tell stories about
climbing up the sides of buildings

for movies like The Fly Cop in 1920.

And so part of that stuck with me,
and I'm that showman now.

He's like, "People drive round,
they look at Christmas lights.

So let's bring this guy out, and we'll
hand them cotton candy in their cars.

And we'll give 'em some hot chocolate."

[Jeremy] Kristy says,
"Why don't we contact a charity?

And maybe you could have a box out there

and people could just put some money in."

In front of the house,
like, on the sidewalk?

Mommy.

[Jeremy] So I set up a page
on social media promoting this.

Six days later, I pulled out my phone,
and I decided to look at the event page.

917 families signed up.

Shut it down. We can't accommodate this.
How are we gonna do this?

My first thought was,
we need to make it bigger.

And that's when I remembered that
I knew a lady who had a camel.

Ideas just kept piling in.

He doesn't know when to stop.

[Kristy] Come on. Come on.
Oh, my goodness! Savanna Claire!

[Jeremy] We had Christmas lights,
hot chocolate, cotton candy,

Santa Claus, the camel, a 35-person choir.

The thing took on a life of its own.

[choir] ♪ Joy to the world!
The Lord is come ♪

-♪ Let earth receive her King! ♪
-[Jeremy] ♪ …receive her King! ♪

There were so many people.

Never seen so many people.

But each night,
it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

[Jeremy] We had this line of cars that
just went for miles and miles and miles.

When I looked out at the crowd,
there's just one feeling.

It was this sense of purpose.

♪ Joy to the world! ♪

And I realized, this is my ministry.

Are you all having fun tonight?

-Yeah!
-That's why we're doing this.

Please, I beg you to support
the local charities that we have.

This is families that are dealing with
children that have cancer.

I hope y'all have a merry Christmas
and thank you so much.

[applause]

For all eight days of the Christmas show,
we were getting phone calls from the city.

"You're in trouble, buddy.
Oh, you didn't get a permit."

[cheering, shouting]

[Jeremy] So when the Berlin Wall
was falling down,

"Guys, get off the wall
you're tearing down.

You have to have a permit
because it's an event."

They said no.
Because this is not an event.

This is a miracle.
You don't get permits for miracles.

[Kristy] Wake up, Daddy.

Wake up.

[Jeremy] December 27th.

Kristy wakes me up and says,
"We gotta get a bigger house."

I was like,
"We can do this even bigger next year."

[Jeremy] So, that same day,
we went to look at some houses.

Myself being in law enforcement
for 30 years,

when I retired, you know,
I wanted a nice, quiet area.

And, you know, this is kind of like
a hidden gem in here.

It's a small neighborhood, and peaceful.

This is a place where
people have come to just relax

and just live a quiet, peaceful life.

We ended up falling in love with the
neighborhood and built our house here.

I like the trees, like the people.
Larry Strayer, I call my neighborhood dad.

[Larry] My wife and I sit on the front
porch and everybody stops, chats.

Everybody's pretty friendly.

[panting, barking]

[Julie] The dogs tie it all together

because almost everybody has a dog,
and they all walk.

And you just stop and visit.

And we learned all the dogs' names

before we learned
any of the peoples' names.

I don't know. People just
seem to care about each other.

It's really almost family.

A couple of the ladies wanted to form
a neighborhood women's bunco group.

They roll the dice and switch tables,
and you win prizes.

If you're the big winner,
you might make 60 bucks.

[Kim]
Now I'm friends with Julie next door,

and she watches my dog
when we go out of town, you know?

[both] Picks up our mail, gets our boxes.

Checks the stove
when I feel like I've left it on.

[Ron] We have great neighbors.

They're some of the nicest people
that you'll ever want to be around.

[Jeremy] We drive into this area
called West Hayden Estates.

It's a beautiful neighborhood.
It had these amazing tall trees.

All the homes were just so perfect.
The lawns are manicured.

And everything looked great.

[Kristy] It was very pretty, very quiet.

It just had this sense of,
"This is where you raise a family.

This is a beautiful community.
This looks great."

[Jeremy] And then we saw the house.

It was a big, beautiful, light blue house.

And it was the dream house.

[woman] We were selling a house,
and they wanted to look around.

Jeremy asked a ton of just odd questions
that we were not expecting.

He was asking about things like,

"How many people
have you had here before?" You know?

And when I said, "Well, we've had
a hundred people for a Super Bowl,"

his eyes lit up super wide.

[Jeremy] They had this long driveway.
Oh, my goodness.

Think of all the people
that could fit on that driveway.

[Larry] He was asking,
"What are your easements like?

What goes on in the back
behind your house?"

All those questions seemed kinda weird.

[Jeremy] It's only a block
from the city limits, which is perfect.

Tons of people will come,

and at the same time,
the city can't shut it down.

He's very strong-willed.

And once we figured out
that he was a lawyer,

it was like, "Oh, okay, that's why."

It's... It's enormous. It's perfect
for hosting this Christmas show.

[Kristy] So we really just kind of
fell in love with it.

This is a beautiful house to decorate,
and we should live here for 20 years.

This was meant for us.

[Jeremy] Kristy just said,
"I think I want this house."

And I said, "I know I want this house.
Let's make them an offer."

Kristy said, "You know what I want to do,

is I want to make cookies
and give it to all the neighbors."

And I said, w... "You don't do that.
The neighbors will make us cook"...

She goes, "No, no, no.

I wanna meet the neighbors,
and I wanna make cookies for them."

[Kristy] When I was growing up,
I lived on the outskirts of town,

so we had no neighbors.

So we didn't have those kinds of close
relationships, and I always wanted that.

You know, just to be friendly and...
'Cause neighbors are important…

in case someone needs something,
or just to keep an eye out for each other.

It's kind of like, in a way,
like a family.

[Jeremy] The Realtor informed us
this was in a homeowners association.

And every HOA has something called CC&Rs.

And basically,
they're covenants and restrictions

that sort of limit what you can do
with your property.

CC&Rs are probably the size
of a phone book, maybe… that thick.

[Larry] There was all kinds
of things in there,

like a limit to the number of animals
you could have in your house.

All kinds of weird things.

[Ron] Does anybody read 'em?
Some people do and a lot of people don't.

They'll have rules saying, like,
you know, um, your…

[sighs] I-I'm trying to remember.

A lot of people see them as, you know,
probably, like, mini-governments,

but they have a choice, you know?

If you wanna buy a home in an area
that has a homeowners association,

then that's the expectation,
that you're gonna follow the rules.

[Jeremy] I reviewed it,

and then I had two of my friends
who are both attorneys

review the CC&Rs as well,

and the conclusion was there's just
no rule that we would be violating

if we went ahead and had the program.

I just wanted to run this by
the president of the HOA and just say,

"Hey, look, you know, we're not asking
you for permission to do this show."

But we wanted to get them involved.

My name is Jennifer Scott.

In 2014, I became president of the HOA
for West Hayden Estates.

Somebody nominated me. It was kind
of a joke. I thought it was kinda funny.

I'm like, "I don't have time for that.
I don't know what I'm doing."

But, um, somehow I ended up
getting voted in.

I did not want to do the job.

Between going to work, picking my kids up,

taking them to all their events,
homework, getting dinner ready,

I didn't have the time.

I got a phone call from Mr. Morris,

and he said that he was purchasing
a home in our subdivision

and wanted to talk to me about this
Christmas show that he had been doing.

He seemed nice. I thought that
the whole idea was exciting and cool.

And, um, I know as a parent,
it was something that, you know,

my family would have
driven through to see.

Christmas lights are infectious, you know?

You put one up in a neighborhood,

and pretty soon other people start
putting them up in a neighborhood.

I remember when I was a child,

my dad teaching me how
to put up Christmas lights.

[man] Hey, hey, hey, hey, Jeremy Jake.

[Jeremy] Gosh,
I must have been four years old.

And after a couple of years, I was
putting up the lights all over our home,

and ultimately it became
Jeremy's Christmas show.

[man on video] Christmas 1994.

And Jeremy put this all together.

[man] Jeremy loved Christmas lights,

and he wanted to do things
that were out of the ordinary.

We had this huge tree. It was probably
about 50 feet, 70 feet. Very, very tall.

Even though it was pitch-black,
dark and raining,

he would be stringing the lights
all the way to the top of the tree.

[Pam] Because Jeremy was
the type of child he was,

-we kind of were always prepared for the...
-Absolutely. How far is this gonna go?

-Yes. That's right.
-Is there an end to this?

I have a lot of gray hair,
and most of them are because of him.

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

[Pam] But Jeremy's got a good heart.

Aw. How did you know?

He wants people to have joy.

And that's why
he has this Christmas event.

["Rock Around the Clock" plays]

[Ron] First time I heard the name
"Jeremy Morris" was when Jennifer called.

At that time,
I was vice president of the board.

She said that she had received a phone
call from a person wanting to know,

if he bought the property, could he do
this... this Christmas program?

She wanted to have
the meeting of the board

so we could give him a decision on that.

[Jennifer] When I got to the meeting,

I let them know
what Mr. Morris was requesting.

Some people got on their phones

and went and looked up
the Facebook event from last year.

Saw the crowds, the noise,
the traffic, the everything,

and they had lots of concerns.

[Ron] Five thousand people or so.
Like, that's a lot of people.

This Christmas show could be
in violation of some of the CC&Rs.

[Jennifer] That was definitely a red flag.

This might be too small of a neighborhood
to do something like that.

I called Mr. Morris,
and I said, "People have some concerns."

He got really upset with me.

He said,
"I'm not asking for your permission.

You're not telling me whether or not
I can do this. I'm doing it regardless."

Um, "And I'm a lawyer,
so I can do that if I want."

I was intimidated by him.

I was kind of in over my head.
I needed help.

[sighs]

I enlisted Larry.

Larry Strayer was
our HOA president for years.

He knew the CC&Rs.

He had much more knowledge than I did.

I said, "I'll write a letter
and I will include the CC&Rs,

by number, and what they say."

The first part of it was very official

in terms of covenants,
codes and requirement,

code sections, etcetera, etcetera.

[groans] Let's see.

And then I also
typed some other things in there.

My sarcasm, uh, came forth.

[Jennifer]
Larry sent it to us to use as a draft.

[Ron] I got it through email.

I had a couple of things that, I won't say
that they shouldn't have been there,

but I know Larry,
and I know his... his sense of humor.

[clicks tongue]

To me, it was like poking fun.

I sent it back to Larry.

"I don't think that
this ought to be in this letter."

[Jennifer] Wording about an atheist,
I think, was in there.

[Larry Strayer] The comment about
atheists changed to, uh, "non-Christian."

[Jennifer] The letter went back and forth.

Meanwhile, I'm still
getting phone calls from Mr. Morris.

He made it very time-sensitive,

and he used the fact that
he was a lawyer multiple times.

[Ron] When I get the letter back again,

there was still something
that I thought should be taken out.

But Jennifer told me it's too late
because it's already been sent.

In the midst of it not being complete,
the letter went out. Certified.

To use an old cop's term,

"How do you put a fart back in
after it's come out?"

[Jeremy] Just a few weeks before
we were scheduled to move in,

I go to my mailbox…

and I receive a certified letter.

I remember, you know, peeling back
the sealed part of the envelope.

It's a letter
from the homeowners association.

And, um, it was horrible.

And the letter began

that they don't want to
"entangle us in expensive litigation."

And then it walked through
three different things

that they claimed
that we would be violating,

which were immediately ludicrous.

Then they go on to talk about
"undesirables coming to the neighborhood."

Who are the undesirables?
Poor people coming to the neighborhood?

And then it said, and I'll quote,

"And finally, I'm hesitant to bring up
the fact that some of our residents

are non-Christians
or people of another faith,

and we don't even want to think of
the problems that that would bring up."

I was aghast.

[Kristy] I just had this rush of emotion.
Like, this can't be real.

Why are they saying
the things they're saying?

You're a HOA board.

I thought you're supposed to worry about
the trash can in the street,

not what religion I am.

[Jeremy] That letter that we received
was the biggest red flag.

This was a case of
religious discrimination.

They don't want your faith
expressed anywhere,

and we need to fight back.

I went to my Bible study
run by my friend, Don Bradway.

[man] I met Jeremy through patriotic
events that I was also involved in.

I liked him. I liked his passion
for what he believes in.

He could be a bit frustrating
because of the passion that he's got,

but I'd rather see somebody
with that kind of passion

rather than vanilla, milquetoast, meh.

[Don] Idaho, we call it Free America.

We like the fact that there's
not a lot of overbearing government here.

We want our guns, we want our freedom,

we want the freedom to worship
where we want to,

and that's what we've got here.

Jeremy had told me
about the letter from the HOA.

Oh, I was outraged.

You talk about being triggered.

That's the kind of thing that
makes people pretty well crazy.

There are people who get elected to
HOA boards because they want to rule.

There's a term called "badge-heavy."

They've got this badge
and it weighs heavily on their chest,

and they're gonna use it.

Don Bradway used the word,
"Crush 'em in the dirt."

[Don] This is absolutely wrong,
what they're doing.

Crush the HOA. Stomp them.

[line ringing]

[Jennifer] Hello?

[Jeremy] Hey, Jennifer.

[Jennifer] Yes.

Hey, it's Jeremy.

What did you tell the HOA board
about the letter?

[Jennifer] About the letter?

[Jeremy] Did you tell them
it was discriminatory?

Did you say
that was discriminatory language?

[Jennifer] Yeah.

-[Jeremy] Okay.
-[Jennifer] Yeah, I-I did.

[Jeremy]
Because people get away with this stuff

with Christians all the time.

I had no idea
he was recording our conversations. None.

[Jeremy] You guys violated the law.

When I say lawyers, I mean lawyers.

They don't mess around.
So they're right now ready to go.

He said he has a whole team of lawyers
that will destroy us.

I was terrified.

My elderly neighbors
can't afford to get sued.

I can't afford to get sued.
I was terrified for my own family.

[Jeremy] I wanted
to come to this neighborhood,

and this is what happened to me.

[Jennifer] He was so angry.

It was just a lot of him
yelling in my ear.

[Jeremy] This is a 40K to 60K situation,
and one that you'll lose.

But that doesn't have to happen.

Here is what I am gonna demand.
I'm gonna tell you this.

These are not negotiable items.

I felt a great deal of pressure, um,

because I felt like I was responsible
for every homeowner in here.

And, um, and it was... it was hard.
It was really hard to deal with.

[Jeremy] But this is it.
It's, like, a one-time offer thing.

There's something called de-annexation.

Basically,
I would leave the HOA completely.

[Jennifer] Okay.

[Jeremy]
Basically, what happens is forever,

that house is no longer
a part of that HOA.

[Jennifer]
He would basically give demands.

It was never about compromise.

It was always his way or no way.

[Jeremy] My second option is
I have a contract with you guys

that no bylaws are ever changed
as long as I live there,

and anyone involved in this resigns.

So, those are my terms. Let me know. Bye.

There were a lot of phone calls,
um, sometimes multiple times a day.

[cell phone buzzing]

[Jennifer] Every time he called,
I dreaded answering it.

[cell phone buzzing]

I felt like he was harassing me.

[cell phone buzzing]

He was driving her crazy.

[cell phone buzzing]

I could see in her of her going downhill,
you know?

She wasn't as outgoing. She wasn't
as friendly. She kind of withdrew herself.

I was tired and had a lot of anxiety.

She said,
"I'm about to have a nervous breakdown."

[cell phone buzzing]

The last phone call I had
with Mr. Morris, uh,

I remember it was, like, dinnertime.

[Jennifer] Hello?

[Jeremy] Am I disturbing you?

[Jennifer]
I'm in the middle of making some dinner,

but I can talk for a few minutes.

[Jeremy] All right.

He proceeded to talk
for probably 20, 30 minutes.

And he said that if we didn't meet
his demands,

we would all be sued,
and it would be ugly.

The stress of, um…

Sorry. [breathes shakily]

I'm sorry.

-[Jeremy] Are you still there?
-[Jennifer] Yeah, I'm here.

[Jeremy] Okay, don't freak out.
Don't get emotion...

And I am not against you guys.
You do not need to cry about this anymore.

I'm not coming after you, okay?

As long as
you had nothing to do with that letter.

[Jennifer]
I'm worried about this whole neighborhood.

-And, I mean, it's all in my hands.
-[Jeremy] Okay.

[Jennifer] I got emotional
on the phone with him.

I was really feeling the pressure
of having to deal with

affecting my family and my community.

My husband saw me
and he could tell that I was just done.

Get off the phone.
I'm gonna take that phone away

because I'm beginning to
lose my mind with this guy.

[Jennifer] I need to get off.
My husband's upset.

[Jennifer] My husband
came up to the phone and said,

"You won't call my wife again.
This will be your last phone call.

Get off the phone now.
You're harassing her, and it will stop."

[Jeremy]
If Ms. Scott can't take it, then I say,

"If you can't take the heat,
get out of the kitchen."

You're the president of an HOA.
You have a responsibility.

You have to be ready to deal
with a problem that you created!

[cell phone buzzing]

[Jeremy] For three days,
I tried to text and call Ms. Scott,

and no response.

[Jennifer] I called Ron.
I said, "I just want out."

So they all understood and let me resign.

[Jeremy] Despite the fact that they had
written things about our faith,

we decided that we were gonna
move into the neighborhood,

be kind and gracious
and just put this all past us.

[Kristy] We finally close on the house
and we moved in,

and there's just nothing.

There's no communication.
It's like crickets.

Almost like it never happened.

But with that comes meeting nobody.

Nobody comes to the house.

[Kim] The possibility
of a lawsuit intimidated me

to even want to meet my new neighbors.

[Jim] When I first met him,
I went to get the mail one day,

and he was out in his front yard.

He asked me if I wanted to help
with his Christmas show.

I said, "No, not really."

And then right away, he goes,

"I'm a lawyer,
and I have 17 other lawyers from Virginia

that says that we can sue you guys."

Well, that's a really
effing good way to win friends,

move into a neighborhood
and threaten to sue everybody.

Probably about the last time
I ever talked to him.

I never met him or spoke to him.

[Larry Strayer]
I'd heard he was an attorney.

I mean, he told everybody that many times.

And so I... I called the, uh, Idaho bar.

I said I wanna check on someone
to see if they are a licensed attorney.

And the lady
on the other end of the line said,

"Yes, can I have his name, please?"

And I said, "Jeremy Morris."

She said, "Oh, yes. He is."

She knew right off the bat.
She didn't have to look it up.

[Jeremy] All right, so this is
my Christmas light tour.

It's a Christmas light wonderland
in here. Wow.

And then check this out.

Got more in here and there.

There's actually more in the kitchen.

Yeah, it's a lot of lights. Crazy.

[Julie] I started looking up information
about him.

I found a couple of articles
that he had been in.

At one point, he had been

active in kind
of a pseudo-political action group.

That really caught my eye as, like,
what is this guy up to?

[Julie] I have a little window
in my bonus room over the garage,

and it's the only window in my house

that I can actually see
Morris's property from.

And so I went up to see if I could see
what was going on.

I did notice that he was starting
to put lights up on his roof,

but it was September.

I thought,
"Oh, he's gonna go ahead with it."

All right, that's some serious lightage.

Oh, yeah. This is gonna look good.

[Ron] Everybody saw what was going on.

And it was decided that

since the people in this neighborhood
didn't want it,

that we'd see an attorney

and have the attorney
do some legal work for us.

[Jeremy] On the 27th of October,
I received a letter.

And it was almost as shocking

as the first letter my HOA had sent me.

It was just one more thing
to drive our family out of the community.

[Jeremy] "It is our determination
that your planned event

is not permitted within
West Hayden Estates.

Dolly the camel
is not an ordinary house pet.

In addition, your event
will be offensive to the senses."

This letter threatened litigation
against our family

if we did not remove
the Christmas lights within ten days.

Ten days.

But they never phone called.

They never knocked on the door.

It was, like, just, boom, attorney.

And then that put us in a position of,
"Well, now what do we do?"

[Jeremy] The following evening,

I was at my desk in my office.

It was late at night. Kristy was asleep.

I had sort of like war on the brain.

The battle lines had clearly been drawn,

and I just felt surrounded

and, you know,
all the neighbors are against me.

And all of a sudden, it just clicked.

Well, of course.

I remembered a story
about an American army general

during World War II,
fighting the Battle of the Bulge.

The Americans were completely
surrounded by the Germans,

and there's no way out, it seemed.
There was just no way.

The American general
received a letter from the German army,

telling him to surrender.

And he just replied one word.

So that's what I did.

I leaned forward at my computer,

and I typed a single word…

"Nuts."

[Ron] I knew what he was referring to.

I thought it was kind of silly,
um, you know,

that, you know…

Here's a grown man, and, uh,
you know, acting like a child.

[Jeremy] It was my favorite thing
I've ever done, honestly.

Kristy always says to me,
"You know people think you're crazy."

I like that.

I want people to think I'm crazy,
because if people think I'm crazy,

they don't know
what I'm gonna do next, right?

So that's where I want them to be.

"This guy's a mystery.
What is he gonna do?"

[Ron] He's bullying himself around
the neighborhood's what he's doing.

Instead of trying to work it out,

he's just, you know,
"I'm doing what I want to do."

[Dex] I think that's
his childhood speaking.

When he was a kid,
and he was being harassed.

Kids made fun of him.

They would pick on him.

[Jeremy] Being an attorney
was a way of combating bullying

of the type that you experience
when you're older.

Being an attorney was a way to gain power.

Okay.

What my HOA did is, they threw a rock,

and that was the threat of a lawsuit.

And what I did is,

I got a thermonuclear weapon
and I blew it up in their face.

And it was called international media.

[reporter 1] Homeowners association
is threatening legal action.

[reporter 2] Legal action would follow.

What the hell is going on?

ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox News.

[reporter 3]
Morris's story has gone national.

[Julie] That was quite shocking
to see in our quiet,

sleepy little neighborhood.

We have freedom of association.

We have freedom of religion.

[Jeremy] There was
a number of microphones,

and I described all of the things
that the HOA had done to my family.

[Julie] Seeing our little neighborhood
on national news and then world news

was humiliating, embarrassing.

I felt like, are people
really gonna believe

that we're discriminating
against him based on his religion?

Once the media started,

that's when his Facebook blew up.

[Kim] People were forming opinions
very quickly,

calling us evil and anti-Christian.

"Members of the West Hayden Estates HOA
voted most likely to see Satan.

You did this to yourself."

[Julie] "I have to say, I'd be
hard-pressed to buy a home in a HOA,

then having some egotistical butt hooks

telling me what I can and can't do
with property I paid for."

[laughs] Wack job!

By this time, I was pretty much
stalking his Facebook page. [chuckles]

I would see what he was up to.

Know your enemy, right?

"Crybaby, anti-Christian,
snowflake liberals."

[Julie] I was really concerned
with his ability

to manipulate public opinion
and convince everybody

that we were anti-Christian.

There's grinches
and there's Scrooges out there.

And those scaly green creatures

sometimes show their little heads
at Christmastime.

[Ron] He was making out
like the neighborhood

was atheists and grinches.

It was bullshit.

[Jennifer] We put up Christmas lights.
A lot of people do around here.

We love Christmas.

We're believers, and we love
to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Thank you for the spirit you've given us
through your son. Amen.

The president's husband is a pastor.

Just about everybody
in this subdivision are Christians,

go to church every Sunday.

[Jeremy Scott] It completely evaporates

his claim of this
being really about religion.

[reporter 4] Vice president of
the West Hayden Estates homeowners board

declined to speak with me on camera.

He is waving his attorney card,
and nobody is willing to talk.

[Santa] Ho, ho, ho.

[Jeremy] I sort of feel like
the protector of Christmas

who will do everything he can
to save Christmas.

I wanted to become the guy
who saved Christmas.

[Ryan] The way that he wants
to be portrayed is…

[stammers] What's the word
I'm looking for? Not a martyr, but...

He compares himself to Moses.

[chuckles]

My name is Shawn Vestal.

I'm a columnist for The Spokesman-Review.

I write about politics,
cultural and social issues

in the kind of Spokane
and North Idaho region.

As the Jeremy Morris story

entered the Fox News
war on Christmas realm...

"the war on Christmas"...

my interest kind of ramped up.

The war on Christmas
was just kind of a con, really.

There was a piece
in the Coeur d'Alene Press newspaper

in which Mr. Morris
talked about his media strategy.

And he said as soon as he was
in a conflict with his neighbors,

that phase one
of the media strategy was activated,

and he reached out to Fox News.

[reporter 5] Morris isn't backing down,

saying he'll go to jail
before a single lightbulb is removed.

He just seemed to seek
and want a lot of attention

and be kind of a hero
for his part of this cultural battle.

Turning Christmas
into kind of a culture war flash point,

I just feel it's damaging to participate

in these sort of made-up narratives
about what's happening in our culture.

And so I reached out to Mr. Morris.

I very clearly got the idea
that he was threatening to sue me,

and that he was warning me to be careful
and not paint him in a false light.

And I wrote the piece that I wrote,

which I said I basically viewed it
as an attention-seeking ploy

rather than persecution.

[reporter 6] The neighborhood squabble
is getting much bigger than this area.

[reporter 7]
Three Percent members showed up

unannounced to Morris's home
to offer him armed protection.

-I'll have security here immediately.
-Sure... Oh, no, it's...

[Ron] The Three Percenters showed up.

They're ultra-right-wingers.

They came to protect him
from those atheist neighbors.

[Jeremy] This is a violation of
my First Amendment right.

Moreover, it's a violation of federal law.

They were, you know,
running around out there with,

you know, with their guns strapped on.

[Shawn] Three Percenters had been involved

in a variety of anti-government incidents.

The Bundy standoff.

[policeman] Get back now!

[reporter 8] Bundy and his supporters

were in the midst of
a heated clash with the feds.

Back up or you're gonna get tased!

[Shawn] Members of the Three Percenters

like to show up with weapons
to be defenders of a situation.

But they're very conservative.
They're very... They're far right.

I was very uncomfortable
with the gun situation.

I didn't know if
we were gonna have a mass shooting

with AK-47s like
is in the news all the time.

[sighs]

I'm not easily threatened by anything,

and if I have to take care of business
with his people, I will.

I said I don't like them
running around here packing guns.

They wanna come on my property
and do something,

I would deal with it.

[Jeremy] I think at this point,
Kristy was angry.

You know, we have the media
all over our lawn,

we're being threatened with a lawsuit,

I'm ready to go to war with them,

and a militia is showing up on my lawn.

[Kristy] So after the Three Percenters
are on our property,

I'm in the house with my daughter,

and I hear this man
just screaming and shouting,

coming down my driveway.

-[man] I'm here on a public street. Calm.
-[Kristy] Yeah.

-Fucking calm.
-[Kristy] Threatening.

I have every right
to stand in the street.

No, you're not calm.

I'm not on your property.

-Sir, you are not calm.
-I don't care.

-I don't care if I'm not calm.
-You are not calm.

[Kristy] This was a neighbor
that I've never met before.

His name is Larry Bird.

He was talking about guns
in the neighborhood

and how they could take care of him.

You are harassing my husband.

-Harassing your husband.
-Yes, you are.

-You just threatened him.
-Are you a lawyer too?

You must've gone to
the same shyster school.

-[Jeremy] Honey, back up.
-No. You just threatened him.

I didn't threaten him nothing.

Yes, you did.
You said you'd take care of him.

[Jeremy] "The Three Percenters
can't protect you.

I have guns.

Other people
in this neighborhood have guns."

[Jeremy] You said we have other ways
to take care of him.

I may come over and offer him a hug.

That's how I'm gonna take care of him.
And you just keep taping and filming.

Typical shit. You guys oughta leave now.

I've now had a credible,
serious death threat

from a neighbor
almost directly across the street.

I'm not a person prone to violence,
but I have to protect myself.

And so I decided to get a gun.

[Don] This guy says
he wants to kill Jeremy.

I'm taking it at face value.

I carry a gun all the time.

We decided we need to sit down with Jeremy

and have a serious discussion.

Should Jeremy proceed?

[Jeremy]
We had a security meeting at our house.

We had a former police officer

and other people that were skilled
in providing security at big events.

This area behind your house is wide open.

[Don] I said,
"I don't think this is a wise idea."

And the other guys
had also said the same thing.

We don't know how much of a wack job
this neighbor is.

And I don't want my friend getting shot,

or worse yet, somebody
spraying rounds into the house

and collateral damage
being Kristy and/or the kids.

[Kristy] I was just not comfortable.

Maybe we have to not have our program.

"I can't do this. I'm sorry."

[Jeremy] Kristy said,
"We cannot do this anymore."

How are those people
gonna protect 60 kids?

My neighbors are essentially
terrorists, domestic terrorists,

because they threaten people.

They put people in fear.

[Don] What are they gonna do?
You're gonna have…

[Jeremy] And I just thought,
you cannot let terrorists win.

[Don] You can't do it.

It's at that point that I decided
I'm going ahead with the show.

Jeremy said, "I've never felt like I was

supposed to do anything more in my life
than I'm supposed to do this.

There's something behind this."

He goes, "I know this sounds silly.
You think it's just lights, or you think...

But it's bigger than that,

and I really truly feel like this is
something I'm supposed to do."

And, um, and so, I, you know,

I decided to leave.

I took my daughter,
and we went to my parents in Virginia.

[Jeremy] I was alone in the house,

and I didn't know if someone
was gonna do something to harm me.

[pants]

[Kristy] I didn't know what was
gonna happen. I was very nervous.

Is Jeremy gonna be okay?

[Jeremy] Here we are on the roof,
working on it.

Probably at night when I shouldn't be.

[Kim] I was nervous about it.

I was worried about what was going on
with that whole situation

and that it had already become a conflict.

And there was possibly going to be
hundreds, thousands of people

coming to our quiet neighborhood.

A lot of people were worried.

Who are these people?

What if they have another agenda?

[Jeremy] Hi, Dolly. Good to see you again.

You know, a lot of people here
still leave their doors unlocked.

It's just kind of that neighborhood
where you're safe. You're secluded.

[Jeremy] The news media
had generated so much hype.

So many people wanted to defy
this HOA and say, you know, "Screw you."

I think one of the scariest things
that was happening

as the opening day was approaching
was I had still not figured out

how thousands of people
are gonna come here.

[man] I got a call from Jeremy.

He had gotten our number from somewhere,

and he was in a little bit of a frantic.

He goes, "I really need your help."

"We've got a Christmas show going on
and we need to transport some people."

I was like,
"Yeah, absolutely. We'll help."

[Jeremy] They provided some buses,
but I still needed Santa Claus.

Santa. Take one, mark.

[chuckles]

[man] I had kind of made up my mind
I was gonna retire the suit.

But then I got a call from Jeremy

asking if I was available.

He's trying to raise money for cancer.

And I thought, "Well, I'll do it."

[Santa] When I got there,
he turned those lights on.

[man] Two, one.

This is like what Clark Griswold did.

[grunts repeatedly]

[choir sings "Hallelujah Chorus"]

Man. Now, that's nuts.

You talk about light up.

["Hallelujah Chorus" continues]

-[Jeremy] Merry Christmas, you guys.
-Christmas!

And there was a lot of people.
There was definitely a lot of people.

-[Pam] People were coming from Washington.
-[Dex] Canada.

Canada.

Um, the buses were party buses.

-[Jeremy] Have fun on the party bus.
-We will.

[bus driver] Okay, folks, here we go.

♪ Rockin' around the Christmas tree ♪

♪ Have a happy holiday ♪

[Jeremy]
The whole point of this was to have fun,

and it was difficult
when I'm trying to hide from the public

that there's a security risk at my house.

We love it, and it's beautiful.

-[Jeremy] Thank you. I appreciate it.
-Yes, such a blessing.

-What a great thing for our community.
-[woman] For years to come.

[Jeremy] We hired armed security,
former police officers,

current police officers.

There was a lot of people there with guns.

And they were there to protect the people

that just wanted to peacefully come
and enjoy and celebrate Christmas.

-Thank you.
-Aw.

[woman laughing]

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

[laughs]

[Kim] This makes me feel
very uncomfortable,

having this many people
next door to my house.

[Ryan] Just the hum of people
when it's that large.

Pair that with buses

continually going
throughout the neighborhood.

There's plenty of noise.

Just cars parked everywhere.

Just bumper-to-bumper cars.

We could just barely get between two cars.

Millions of cars. [chuckles]

[Jeremy] Our busiest night of our event.

We have one car coming.

He went out
and was walking down the street,

and there just happened to be no traffic,
and he's filming it.

[Jeremy] There's nothing. It's dead.

I get a message from Kristy,
"We have a problem."

And it was the first indication that,
wow, this is not good.

[Jeremy] The gentleman wrote on Facebook

that his mother, who is elderly,
was treated so poorly by the neighbors

that he wanted to do really, really,
really bad things to the neighbors.

And it took a lot for him not to.

[crowd singing "Silent Night"]

[Jeremy]
My neighbors came down the streets,

came up to my property,

and they stood in the middle
of the street and harassed people.

They hit cars.

They threatened people.

They told them
to get the hell out of the neighborhood.

Clearly, these neighbors
are gonna do anything they can

to shut down this Christmas show

that's bringing joy to people
by the thousands!

[Santa] I don't understand
why people act the way they do

knowing that someday they gotta answer
for the stupidness that they do.

I don't wanna tick the guy off upstairs.

[Jeremy] Nobody is gonna stop me
from what I believe is my mission,

which is to spread the joy of Christmas
to other people.

["A Holly Jolly Christmas" plays]

[Jeremy] The next Christmas show,
of course, had to be even bigger.

And it's gonna get bigger
and bigger every single year,

because my neighbors are bitter,
angry, old people that deserve it.

[Jeremy] I now had so many lights.

There's no way
I could even put up this many lights.

[Pam] He had a big huge crane go up
to do the lights in the trees and...

And he had somebody up there
with 30-mile-an-hour winds

stringing lights in a tree,

and the cherry picker
would be moving like this.

Everybody wanted to help him.

-It was a crane, actually. Yeah.
-And a... Cherry picker.

[Jeremy] Yeah, that looks good!

So, in 2016…

I'm trying to remember what month the…

propaganda started.

The propaganda.

He was on social media
inviting anyone and everyone

to come out to his light show
or Christmas show.

[Julie]
I felt, like, a real sense of dread.

Like, oh, here we go again.
What's gonna happen this time?

It's this constant loop
of the never-ending cycle of crazy,

and we don't know how to get off.

I know a couple of neighbors
who purposely left

and went on vacation
so they could avoid it altogether.

[cheering]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is good.

[Jim] I was out chipping the ice from
out of the driveway,

and his security guy came by and he says,

"You got the driveway
blocked off pretty good."

And I said, "Yeah, I just wish I could
have done it on the roads on either end."

He goes, "Hey, knock it off!
He's got a permit for this."

And I go, "Bullshit, he does."

He says, "He's got a permit
from the city of Hayden for this."

I said, "Bullshit! We aren't even
in the city of Hayden. This is county."

And he says,
"I'm with the sheriff's office.

If you don't quit doing this, we're gonna
slap a restraining order on you."

One of the neighbors asked me,

"Who are you? You from the show?"

And he thought I said I was
with the police department or something.

And, uh, he threatened me.

He said, "Hey, right now, let's go."
Very aggressive. Uh, a big guy.

[Jim] I called the sheriff's office
and said,

"We've got somebody here
impersonating a deputy, threatening me."

[line ringing]

[female dispatcher] Uh, 21.

23, 44. I'll be en route.

[deputy] A call came in to our dispatch

from the Jeremy Morris dispute
up on Ferndale

regarding one or the other
threatening to hurt or beat up or…

At some point, somebody was alleging
that they were gonna kill the other.

[siren blaring]

[deputy] Driving into the area,

you could see the house
from far down the street.

There were lights everywhere.

There were cars down his road,

down other roads,
for several hundred feet.

[deputy] Two people
were upset and yelling at each other.

[Jim] They came and talked to me,

and they went over
to talk to Jeremy and his minions.

[Dex] The police officer said,
"I know the tension in the neighborhood.

I know the threats.

And I had to at least talk to you
because I have to write it on the report."

[deputy] The allegations
of death threats were unfounded.

There wasn't anything to really
substantiate or corroborate.

You could always subpoena the camel.

[Kim] There have been so many lies

and exaggerations and deceit.

So, um, I wanted to film
what was really going on.

[Kim] So now this lady can't get past
because there's two buses.

And this is the congestion
that we're concerned about.

[Jeremy] One of my security guys
came up to me and says,

"Look, there's this lady.
She's very suspicious.

She's walking back and forth.
I don't know if she's gonna do something."

And I figured out who it was.

It was my neighbor, and she was
recording things and taking pictures.

[Blaine] As I'm driving down the road,

I see a guy out there
snowblowing his driveway.

And there was a gal in the next yard
that was videotaping.

I felt something weird.

The way he was looking at the bus,

this guy isn't gonna
do something crazy, I hope.

[Blaine] I was nervous,

and I'm slowed way down
and I'm looking at him.

He threw himself down, like, jumped back.

Like, "Oh, my gosh.
I almost got ran over."

There was a sheriff
that was already there.

I said, "I don't know
what's going on with the neighbors,

but they're setting up a fake accident

to say that we were dangerously
almost running people over."

-There was no incident.
-Yeah.

Nobody knew anything
about a fake, staged accident.

-I mean, it's just absurd.
-Yeah.

[Jeremy]
Not only are neighbors threatening people,

throwing snowballs and hurling epithets
and hitting cars,

people are staging fake accidents
with snowplows.

It had gone too far.

This was a safety issue.
Something had to be done.

So I stayed at home,

and through the night and the day
and the night and the day,

for four or for five days straight,
I wrote the best damn lawsuit of my life.

I can sue them
from now until kingdom come.

[reporter 9]
Jeremy Morris is in a legal battle

with his Hayden homeowners association
for his Christmas display.

[Ron] I saw it on the news.

[reporter 10]
A trial date will be set next month.

Morris is seeking $250,000
in punitive damages.

The general feeling
of the neighborhood was,

"Is this really happening?"

If he was gonna file a suit,
why didn't he file it three years ago?

From the day I moved in,

knowing the potential for litigation,

I sat there at my window,

and anytime I watched
something violate a rule,

I was there with a camera
and I documented it all.

[Jeremy] There's a rule that
you can only have two dogs.

So I watched my neighbors
walking three dogs.

They're not walking other people's dogs.
These are their dogs.

It was embarrassing.

[Jeremy]
They were building a house next door.

[Larry Strayer] Jeremy has traveled up
and down the streets,

taking pictures of violations.

They could be or they could not be,
I don't know.

All right.

[Jeremy] You can only have
a concrete driveway.

Someone decided to put in
an asphalt driveway.

Here's rules that are being violated.
Rule, rule, rule.

Left and right,
my neighbors are violating rules.

I mean, it was like the evidence
is just pouring in.

I'm like, "Wow, this is so bad."

[Larry Strayer]
People will put a flag with tulips on it,

or a small flag
with a picture of two snowmen,

and he will take a picture of that.

[Jeremy] They said you can't have
structures in your driveway.

But one of the board members permanently
has a massive net built on her driveway.

Now, I don't care,
but if you're gonna come at me,

then maybe you'd better
check your own backyard.

You know, like, don't throw rocks
if you live in a glass house.

I am the attorney who represents

the West Hayden Estates
Homeowners Association

in the case filed by Jeremy Morris.

I think he set up the association.

My personal theory is he wanted
to put people in a situation

where he could use what they said,

either recorded
or by email or in a meeting,

to frame this as
a religious discrimination case.

Especially when you listen
to some of the recordings

where he plants words in people's mouths
that would fit his case.

[Jennifer] I remember
all those phone calls from Mr. Morris.

He used my kindness

and the fact that I wanted to sympathize
with him, and he just used it.

He used it all. Like, he ate it up.

He always had this angle.

[Peter] Any action
taken by almost any person

can be framed in
some sort of discriminatory light.

This case has the potential of
essentially allowing the Fair Housing Act

to become a hammer to hit on people
if they object to what you're doing,

and they can tie it,
even just a little bit, to religion.

He is 100% calculated on what he's doing.

[male court clerk] This is the recorded
video deposition of Jennifer Scott

in the matter of Morris versus
West Hayden Estates First Addition.

[Jeremy] In your deposition,
I'm gonna be asking you questions,

and you're going to be
answering them under oath.

-Do you understand this?
-Yes.

[Jennifer] Mr. Morris was
the one doing the deposition.

He wanted to ask me these questions
face-to-face to intimidate me.

I remember my heart pounding,

um... [clicks tongue] sitting there.

[Jeremy] Uh... And I'm entitled to

what are considered complete answers.

Do you understand this?

[Jennifer] Yes.

[Jeremy] You were the president
of the HOA during 2015, correct?

Correct.

I really had a lot of joy deposing her
and asking her all sorts of questions.

[Jeremy] Do you think that
the letter was discriminating?

No.

[Jeremy] I'm, like, a thousand times
smarter than these people.

And I can lay traps and set them up
every single time.

Did you tell the board that the letter
was discriminatory language?

-No.
-[Jeremy] Okay.

[Jennifer] I realized what he was doing.

He was asking me these questions
he was setting up,

in his head, for me to agree with.

Let me rephrase the question.

Did you tell the board that
the letter was discriminatory?

No.

I decided I wasn't gonna stand for that.

[Jeremy] Are there any people
living in the West Hayden Estates

who have a problem with religion?

Not that I'm aware of.

When he didn't get what he wanted,

he just continued to bait me
and bait me and bait me.

He was expecting me to be his puppet.

But, being in a court,
you had to speak absolute truth.

I don't feel like anybody has ever,
at any point, purposely...

[Jeremy] That's not my question.

[Jennifer] The longer the deposition went,
the more angry he got with me.

I'm gonna ask you to answer my question.

Not the one that you want to answer.

You're gonna have to rephrase
that question.

-I'm not sure what you're asking me.
-I'm asking you if...

[attorney] Objection. Speculation.

[Jeremy]
Yeah, I'd like to finish my question.

[sighs] Um, to your knowledge,

has anyone in the neighborhood ever hosted
extraordinarily large gatherings?

Extraordinarily large? No, just you.

Do you have empathy for the Morris family
for how they've been treated?

[sighs, clicks tongue]

I feel like the majority of this,
you brought on.

[Jennifer] It felt like being
the kid on the playground,

like, standing up to the bully.

It felt so good to just be like,

"No, stop putting words in my mouth.
Stop manipulating me.

Stop taking my words and turning them
into horrible things. Stop."

And it was good.

[Jeremy] No further questions.

[sighs heavily]

[Kristy] The thought that I was actually
going to federal court

with my neighbors was just unbelievable.

It was awkward. It was tense.

There were three rows
full of our neighbors, all together.

[Jeremy Scott]
We wanted the truth to get out.

-Our reputation had been…
-Decimated.

…for years,
had been raked through the mud.

For us, there was a lot at stake.

[Jennifer] Our hope was
that the jury would be able to pick out

what was nonsense,
like, what was just not real.

[Peter] Jeremy Morris
was required to prove

that they discriminated against him
on the basis of his religion.

Discrimination isn't always obvious.

It can be hidden behind other actions.

And that's where the difficulty comes in,

is sorting through this mess of facts.

And in this case, kind of a perfect storm.

In some ways,
an orchestrated perfect storm.

There are not two sides to this.

The only way you create
two sides to this story is if you lie.

But fortunately, I also record people.

[Julie] And she told me,
"We just don't want him here."

[Chris] They didn't want your beliefs
pressed on anybody in the neighborhood.

[Jeremy] Why won't you guys
just leave my family alone?

[Ron] I told you that
you're being a fucking bully.

I suspected he was taping everybody,
every time he talked to anybody,

because he's an attorney.

I didn't know that that was legal.

I remember feeling at first like,
"Oh, my gosh. What did I say?"

[Jeremy] Why do they come after me?

[Ron] It's because
somebody in this association

doesn't like Christmas.

And when you hear those words
come out of their mouth, it hurts you

because you're like,
"Dang. Now I have to explain that."

Especially with recordings.
They're parsed, right?

You hear a sentence here
and a sentence there.

It's hard to know
who's telling you the truth.

[Jeremy laughs] Well, you nailed it.

-You're right. Why?
-[Ron] It's...

-And why is that?
-It's be...

[Jeremy] Because it's a Christian holiday.
Boom.

Every single action
that they took kept confirming,

through recordings that I made,

that this was never about
a violation of rules.

This was about targeting my family.

[Jeremy] Hey, Jennifer?
Did you tell them it was discriminatory?

Did you say
that was discriminatory language?

-[Jennifer] Yeah.
-[Jeremy] Oh, okay.

Yeah, I did.

Where are her recordings?

She doesn't have any recordings.

You know who has the recordings?
I have the recordings.

That's right, Ms. Scott. I do.

And let me tell you something, Ms. Scott.

We got you lying in a deposition,

because you didn't know

that I had secretly
tape-recorded you admitting

that your homeowners association board
discriminated against me

and that you told them that they did.

[Julie] During the trial,
I was very anxious.

I had trouble sleeping.

I would sit and stew about it
all night long.

Seeing Julie have a hard time,
I didn't really like it.

She was really upset,

and so that kind of, like, made me upset

just because of what was going on,
I guess.

You had some sleepless nights too,
didn't you?

Yeah, and I had
some sleepless nights about it too.

Some nights I'd just wake up
and I'd be so pissed off

about what he was doing,
I couldn't believe it.

I just couldn't sleep.

[Jeremy] Four witnesses, mothers,

testified that they were assaulted
at my Christmas show.

[witness 1] We heard a gentleman
screaming obscenities at us

-to move my effing car.
-[witness 2] Screaming obscenities.

And he approached my vehicle,
kicked my side of the car.

He told them
they needed to slow the fuck down.

-[witness 1] Just not welcome here.
-Not welcome in the neighborhood.

[Jeremy] Then on the fourth day,
during Jennifer Scott's testimony,

she says,
"Mr. Morris said it was a ministry."

I looked over at Kristy and I said,
"Bingo. We won."

We were found guilty.

And the reaction was, I think, disbelief.

It was kind of like
a cannonball hit me in the stomach.

I was shocked.

See that headline?

The jury unanimously decided

that the homeowners association
had discriminated on religious grounds

and awarded Jeremy and Kristy $75,000.

That's a heavy burden to take,

especially for a lot of people
who are retired and on fixed incomes.

And, um... It's a lot.

[Jeremy] What do you want
for Christmas from Santa Claus?

A hundred garden gnomes.

-A hundred garden gnomes?
-[Savanna] Yeah!

Jeremy came and he hugged me,
and he was like, "We won."

We were just really relieved.

Who wishes that it was Christmas
every single day of the year?

-Me!
-Me!

This was the happy ending
of the fairy tale.

-Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
-[chuckles]

[Jeremy] Winning the lawsuit
wasn't really about money.

What it was is
it was about our principles.

In America, we love freedom,
to go where we want, do what we want,

say what we want,
believe whatever we want.

[laughs] I'm jumping!

[Jeremy] If we don't stand up
for our values

when we're actually, as a family,
in a position to do that,

then what family would?

It's Andrew Ray. Whoa!

[both chuckle]

And that became more important to me
than money, than time.

I've lost relationships.

I've lost time with my children,
time with my wife.

At the end of the day,
is all of this really worth it?

Yes.

-[Kristy] Lunchtime!
-[Jeremy] Let's put our hands together.

Andrew.

Hands together.

All right.
Dear Lord, we thank you for this food.

Bless it to our bodies.
We thank you for this beautiful day.

-In your name we pray. Amen.
-[Kristy] Amen.

All right. Let's dig in, guys.

My family had been vindicated.

And it had taken a long time.

I finally had some sort of justice.

[beeping]

[scanner beeping]

[Kim] I was in the grocery store.
I got a phone call.

The judge had reversed the jury's decision

and that Morris had been found guilty.

Oh, my gosh.

I still have that phone call
saved on my voice mail.

-I will keep it forever.
-[both chuckle]

[Julie] Knock, knock, knock on the front
door, and here's Kim and Jennifer.

And they were both just… buzzing.

I ran out to my garage fridge
and grabbed my bottle of pink champagne.

And all of a sudden these neighbors

come marching up our doorway,
and they have champagne bottles.

-They said, "We won."
-[Evelyn] Oh, my God.

So we're dancing in the street
with our bottles of wine.

No, we needed more champagne
than just one bottle.

-Well, honey…
-[laughs]

…this doesn't need to be brought into it.

-You're on film.
-I know.

He says, "Shit, I want to pour it
on his lawn." [chuckles]

[Jeremy]
That federal judge flipped the verdict

and ordered my family
to pay $112,000 of their legal fees.

So we have a corrupt judge. Right?

[Jeremy]
"The recordings Mr. Morris created

of his interactions with other homeowners
in the West Hayden Estates

show that he was
aggressively confrontational."

[Jeremy] Let me tell you,
Dolly, I'm coming for her.

This woman
is in open violation of the rules!

The question is,
what dog are we taking from Dolly?

Now, we're talking about
a 80-something-year-old woman.

He said something
about going after her dogs.

[Jeremy]
The little white one's the one I want.

[Jeremy] "Plaintiffs' witnesses
did not present credible testimony

that held up under cross-examination."

The lights weren't bright.

Noise? What noise?

-♪ Come let us adore Him ♪
-♪ Ah ♪

"Mr. Morris's testimony
was riddled with inconsistencies.

Conversely, board president Jennifer Scott

was convincingly and credible
throughout her testimony."

[Jeremy] Was Mr. Morris a bully to you?

Yes.

I felt very intimidated and scared.

I mean, many times,
I cried on the phone with you.

[Jeremy] "The evidence in this case
uniformly supports

the homeowners association's
version of events."

We now live in a banana republic, okay?

We're like one of these

corrupt Latin American countries
that you read about

with a dictator
that executes people and, um,

I don't know, takes them out
in a back alley somewhere.

The judge put an injunction in place

so Morris was prevented
from having his show,

which still is in place today.

We already know what's coming.

Mm-hmm. You can only live on that high
for a period of time.

It's like you hang on the high,
and then you know you're going back down

-into the next valley.
-Because he's gonna appeal it. Yeah.

[Jeremy] May sunshine and gladness

prepare you on Earth
for a beautiful birthday in heaven.

All right. Now blow it out. Go.

Yay! All right!

All right. So, even though
they violated our rights,

they harassed us,
they tried to prevent us from moving in,

and then after we moved in,

they tried to run us
out of the neighborhood,

even though all those things
are true, I am saying j...

I come, Mama.

He said, "I'm coming." [laughs]
He's got his fork.

I'm getting frustrated.

I'm trying to make a complete thought,
and you're all over the place.

-Can I just start over and you not talk?
-Sure.

Thanks. All right. Ready? Here we go.

[sighs] The HOAs should be absolutely
prohibited in the United States.

-Almost never do you have a situ...
-Hold on.

[screams]

All right. I'm just not gonna finish
that thought, okay?

'Cause it's just not gonna happen.

[Jeremy] Please, everyone, be quiet
so I can actually not go crazy.

-[Kristy] Wrap it up.
-I'm gonna go to an insane asylum.

Now, here we go. Ready. The point is th...

[Andrew babbles]

-All right. This is just... Just stop.
-No. Did you make your point?

Um, yeah, I guess so.

-No!
-All right. No. No. Get down.

[Kristy] Happy birthday.

All right. The show's about to start.

So, wouldn't be complete
without this guy. [sighs]

This is where it all started.

[Kristy] If we were to lose the appeal,

then we would pay the HOA's
attorney's fees from the federal trial

and to the appellate level.

It would be a bankruptcy
if we were to lose this.

Our case... Are you crying?

-[breathes shakily]
-It's okay.

Listen, our case, if we lose...

-All right. Come here.
-No. Just...

-What?
-Just how much... [sniffles]

It's okay. It's all right. It's okay.

-[crying, sniffling]
-It's okay.

We're going against…

our... our actual neighbors.

[sighs]

That's how this has been for years.

It's taken a toll on our marriage.

It's… hurt our kids.

I don't even know how many hundreds
of thousands I've spent on this case.

It's a huge investment,
not just in our family,

but also in helping other people.

If we win, we can set a precedent

that people will use our case

to exercise their property rights
to feel free in their home.

So…

Let's kick this sucker off.

All right, we're live.

Merry Christmas.

[judge] Morris versus West Hayden Estates.

[stammers] I find this a very hard case.

[Ron] We were all notified
where to watch the appeal from,

'cause it was a live YouTube.

[attorney] This court should reinstate

the jury's unanimous verdict
for the Morrises.

What exactly is the discrimination?

I'm sorry, Your Honor.

-You were breaking up.
-What exactly is the discrimination?

I like her, up in the right corner.

[attorney]
I think a reasonable reader reading,

"Some of our residents are non-Christians
or of another faith.

And I don't even want to think
of the problems that could bring up."

What is the problem with the letter?
[chuckles]

The original letter, if I read it one way,
I say that's an inclusive statement.

-[Kim] Mm-hmm.
-We're trying to watch out for

everybody's beliefs in the neighborhood.

Could a reasonable reader
look at the letter and say

this is not discriminatory?

And I would have to say no.

Seven unanimous members of the jury

read the letter and understood it
with the explicit reference

to non-Christians
or members of another faith.

Bam. All right.

But the whole discussion
is about the event,

not about the person
or the fact that he's Christian.

Yes, thank you. Oh.

-Yes.
-She's seeing it, you know?

-She's right.
-We didn't know. We didn't care.

It has nothing to do with religion.

She gets it, but I don't think
the rest of them do.

[attorney]
I respectfully disagree, Your Honor.

That statement
is very much about religion.

Religion?

It could be read that way
by a paranoid idiot.

Half of the people on the board
share the same beliefs as you.

Why would we discriminate against you?

[judge] Does your claim rest on the notion

that this Christmas event
was a religious activity?

[attorney] In terms of
the Morrises' personal beliefs,

they lived out those beliefs
in hosting the Christmas event.

-Um, or whether one wants to...
-The Christmas event

was Frosty the Snowman and hot chocolate.

-And, uh…
-No, it wasn't.

…an awful lot of what's going on here
is not religious.

[Jeremy] Some people say,

"Do you have to have this Christmas show
to really be a Christian?"

My response to that is
it's none of your damn business.

-I see that I'm over my time...
-Yes, your time is up.

Oh, no.

How a person wants to celebrate
their faith, it's really up to them.

This is all about freedom.

Thank you, Your Honor.
My name is Peter Smith.

I'm the attorney
for the homeowners association.

-Also known as Devil's... Devil's friend.
-Stop, Jeremy. Stop.

[Peter] How this letter could be read
to be discriminatory.

They were concerned that people

wouldn't like their display
of their Christian faith,

and that, therefore,
it wasn't gonna be allowed.

-Why is that? Why am I wrong?
-Exactly.

-Put this down. I'm not gonna...
-Hold on. I'm texting our attorney.

Being purportedly tied
to a Christian event,

isn't that an endorsement of that religion
over other people's religion?

It's not their business.

-This isn't a First Amendment case...
-Stop.

So then no one can practice their faith.

Then no one can do anything
on their property.

What a commie.

-That guy is a communist.
-Stop.

No, he's a commie.

[Dex]
Jeremy's very much a fundamentalist of...

of, uh, rights, of individualism.

So here, he runs into an HOA.

A HOA is really socialism.
It takes away the individualism.

This is the same schmuck

that said that people
can't assemble on my property.

He used the word "assemble."

[Jeremy]
The American constitution was set up

really as a way to limit government.

There are these things
that are just, basically,

liberties that come from God.

The First Amendment
guarantees a right to assemble

and the right to religious expression.

[Shawn] I do believe
that people should be free

to believe and practice their religion,
but what we see is a tension

between people
who view themselves as individualists

that is actually
kind of hostile to neighborliness.

He came and told them
that he was going to have the event

and that he was gonna buy the house
and they couldn't stop him,

and if they did, he would sue them.

He said, "In your face.
I'm doing this. Up yours."

[Shawn] Individualists consider
American freedom to be,

"I get to do whatever I want."

And that's the end
of the freedom question, right?

[Peter] Freedom cuts both ways.

And he's saying,
"Well, my rights trump yours."

When they push back, he's saying,
"Now you're walking over me."

That's the really, really, tough questions
that society has to answer,

is who wins
when two different interests collide?

I think we're seeing that
in society overall.

[judge] It seems to me undeniable
that this is a nuisance.

-Does that justify the injunction?
-It does, Your Honor.

Any one of those grounds, uh,

would be a violation of the covenants,
conditions and restrictions,

allowing an injunction.

[Kim] He says,
"This is a Christian ministry of mine.

I have rights. I have rights to do this."

Well, we have rights too.
And we're his neighbors.

Think my time is up.

[judge]
Thank you very much. Your time is very up.

-[sighs]
-Well…

Well…

[Peter] Not easy questions to answer.

I'm sure glad I'm not on that panel
and have to make the call.

It's just a little slice of society,
in one case in North Idaho.

I hope they see the right
and the wrong of this whole case.

And I personally think we're right.

We've done nothing wrong.

I just feel like it's never gonna end.

[Ryan] Now we continue to wait.

And we're told it could be 12 to 24 months
before we hear from the judge.

[Jeremy] If we lose the appeal,

then we'll be appealing
to the United States Supreme Court.

And it would become
a million-dollar lawsuit.

[Jeremy Scott] If we win and Morris
does appeal it to the Supreme Court,

it's another five to six years.

It won't end.

It will be, when this is done,

then he'll start
coming after all of us individually.

Yeah. We know... We all feel that next
it's gonna be personal lawsuits.

Because he's an attorney,
he can sue, essentially, for free.

This really is not about a show, religion.

It's really about one person
getting what they want.

I mean, and trampling people
to get what they want.

I mean, that's not... [scoffs]
There's no victory in that.

-Nope.
-There's none.

-Nope.
-[sniffling]

[Kim] What he did was very contrary
to what Scripture tells us to do.

To not repay evil with evil,

to strive to do what is good.

Seek peace and pursue it.

-He did the exact opposite.
-Yeah.

[Julie] Maybe I'm vindictive or something,
but I can never forgive him

for what he's done to this neighborhood.

I think he's caused us all so much stress.

[Julie] I never met anybody like him

that was so negative
and nasty from the get-go.

[Jennifer] Being recorded
without your knowledge

and having somebody manipulate you
for a period of time

really messes with
the way that you view people.

When I meet people now,
it's an instant wall,

which is not like me at all.

But it's kind of ironic that this lawsuit

has really drawn people closer in a way.

I'm kinda thankful for that. [chuckles]

[Julie] Sharing a common enemy, I guess.

[Kim] This whole debacle

has brought out some of the worst
and some of the best in people.

People would say snide remarks,

or, you know, um, the neighbor
who came storming down the road,

profanity coming out of his mouth,

which I did witness.

I've said bad things. I've gossiped.

I got sucked in,
and there were times I acted

in ways that I am shameful of.

[Kristy]
I'm sure that everyone in this wishes

that things could've gone differently

or regrets something that was said
or something that was done.

Everyone here has a part to it.

I feel like it would be best
for everyone if I did move.

I feel like it would give peace
for my neighbors.

It would give peace for my family.

It's not what I want,
but I do kind of feel like, in the end,

that it would be
a better resolution for everyone.

We've missed out on

so many relationships
that we could've had,

and memories and get-togethers,
and that's all I ever wanted.

I feel like I got blocked.
I didn't get that chance.

I think I've just missed out.

So…

Can I... [sighs]

[Jeremy Scott]
It's dangerous when any one of us

puts this wall around our rights.

And, "How dare you
try to trample my right?"

And not even thinking about
the right of another person.

We have to have a plurality of rights
in our society.

And I just see

this being more and more of an issue
in the culture today in America.

[Jeremy] Dear Lord, we thank you
for this food that you have provided.

If my methods put some people off,

I would say that sometimes
the only way to counter extremism,

in this case secular extremism,

it is with zealous advocacy
of faith and traditional values.

[Jeremy] There was a time
when most Americans

pretty much agreed on the same principles.

We were a very united country.

And now, nobody believes
in one thing or two things.

They believe in 500 things.

So you know what?
Now you can't have anything.

[interviewer]
What do you think his motives are?

Mmm. I don't wanna get sued. [chuckles]

Mmm.

[chuckles]

[Ron] I think he's using this case

as a springboard
to go for something bigger.

[Julie] The only thing I can come up with
is that he was trying

to get this big lawsuit going
and make a name for himself.

[Dex] His intention was
to become a senator.

And he thought because
of the conservative nature of Idaho,

he had a good possibility
of becoming a senator.

We're gonna take a picture
on the ugliest day ever in Idaho.

[chuckles]

[Dex] He wanted to do things in life.

Lawyer, um, next level of...

-President.
-President, he... he said.

I said, "Really?" And he said,
"I... I think I'd be a great president."

Does that tree need to be pruned?

-[Kristy] Say, "Santa."
-Santa.

Santa. Cheese. Santa.

["A Holly Jolly Christmas"
by Burl Ives plays]