At the lanes, snow is glistening; bowling in a winter wonderland

Helen Sellew, owner of Fairway Bowling in Natick, buzzes around the alley constantly this time of year. Although slightly hobbled by knee replacement surgery last January, she constantly monitors and tweaks the alley's annual holiday display.

At this time of the year, "we don't pay much attention to the rest of the business!" she said, laughing.

People speeding by on Route 9 may mistakenly believe they can see the whole show in the front windows, but the rocking Santa and goodie-serving Mrs. Claus there are just the beginning. Inside is an elaborate display that boasts 160 moving Santas, elves, and assorted animals, and at least as many stationary figures.

Now in its 40th year, the display covers every inch of the alley that's not needed for bowling, unfolding scene after scene for the young, curious eye: Santa going sledding, snowmen building an igloo at the North Pole, a Santa's Express plane buzzing the control tower, and a cat opening a present (a mouse), to name just a few.

The display is the work of Sellew and a dedicated crew that includes bowling alley mechanics who "operate" on the figures when their motors break, along with volunteers, many of them longtime patrons of the alley.

Sellew, 79, who is referred to as "the general" around this time of year, claims it's better than the Enchanted Village, the legendary holiday display that once beguiled children at Jordan Marsh downtown.

Fairway's display started small -- and on a whim -- during a trip Sellew and a friend took to New York City in 1967, 12 years after she opened the alley with her father and brother.

Killing time while waiting for the train home, the pair wandered into the showroom of a manufacturer of holiday displays.

A few hundred dollars later, with the help of her friend's emergency fund, Sellew was the proud owner of a window-washing snowman.

For years, putting up the display was simple, taking a few hours of the day before and the day after Thanksgiving. But the task grew as Sellew bought more and more figures.

These days, the alley's dozen employees start hauling items out of storage spots in the basement and above the pin-setting machines about two weeks before Thanksgiving.

More than a dozen volunteers put on the finishing touches the day after Thanksgiving, a ritual that many say is both the official kickoff of their holidays and a family reunion of sorts.

"They're all familiar faces to me. I see everybody here year after year, so they must all get the same charge out of it I do," said Dawn Scaltreto, 45, who has been making signs and touching up the displays for 25 years.

A professional artist, Scaltreto says she visited both Fairway and the Enchanted Village as a kid, and the Natick display is better.

At Fairway, she said, there are no lines, and you can approach and touch the figures, while in Boston, "they were all behind glass, and you couldn't get close to them, and you were waiting hours and hours to go through. By the end of the day, everybody was really cranky and tired and wanted to go home."

Time takes its toll on the display, Sellew said. Motors break, paint fades, and the motorized figures' manufacturers want nothing do with them once they're sold, as she found out when she shipped the window-washing snowman back for repairs.

"Never saw him again!" said Sellew. "So we realized that we were going to have to fix them ourselves."

When the figures need more than cosmetic work by Scaltreto, they're taken into the back by the alley's mechanics, who become surgeons of sorts.

"They're not made to be repaired; you have to actually cut them open," said Bob Ross, 49, an 11-year Fairway employee.

He said the motors can usually be replaced and the incisions covered by fur or clothing.

Ross said he and the other employees keep an eye out for mechanical breakdowns throughout the season. "If we're walking around, see something not working, we'll try and give it a little nudge, help it along, see if it'll start up."

Ross claimed to have no favorites among the displays, but fellow mechanic Joe Sparkes admitted that he's become attached to several in his three years working there.

"It sounds crazy to bond with these things," conceded Sparkes, 29, as he hung a "Shhhh... Santa's sleeping" sign from the ceiling above a slumbering St. Nick, a scene that's one of his favorites.

"When I see one that's not working just how I want it, positioned just how I want it, I make sure that thing's perfect."

Sparkes said his fiancee, whom he met at Fairway, has gone there since she was a kid and quickly notices small changes.

"She'll come in, and she'll say, 'Oh, that raccoon wasn't there last year, it was over here,' " he said. "It's really funny how much people will remember about every little piece."

For Joshua Scherz of Wayland, the display is both a family tradition from his Newton childhood and a valuable addition to bowling outings with his kids, 2-year-old Jasper and 7-year-old Maxine, who were joined recently by Maxine's friend, Elizabeth Cousins of Medfield.

"Usually, you come and you bowl for half an hour, but this turns it into an hour-long event," said Scherz, who said he also prefers Fairway's display to the Enchanted Village, because here, "you can touch 'em and stuff. For the kids, it's great."

Sister Mary Anthony, a Needham native who now lives in Connecticut, vowed to return after seeing the display for the first time while bowling a few strings with her 8-year-old niece, Lee Anastasia of Needham.

Jackie Herrere of Waltham said she expects to be back before the year is out, so that her two kids, 7-year-old Jasmin and 3-year-old Benjamin, can revisit their many favorites, especially the sleeping Santa and the Mickey and Minnie Mouse that flank the alley lounge's fireplace.

Watertown's Abigail Vershbow, already a display veteran at age 8, initially declined to name a favorite ("My favorite is everything," she said) but later singled out Santa's broken-down truck, attended by a begoggled beaver mechanic.

Sellew said she never planned for the display to get so big, recalling a comment by her late brother that seemed to sum up the situation.

"He used to say to me, 'I think the only reason we have the bowling alley is so you'll have someplace to put your display.' "