Lavish Christmas display started as competition
PARKER TWP — Jamie and Fred Wood start setting out their outdoor Christmas decorations in September.
It might seem they are rushing the season, but it takes that long to set up the 48 illuminated candy canes that front their Annisville Road home, assemble the 32 arches that encase their driveway in a tunnel of light, install their the two Nativity sets and 45 other lighted figures across the front yard and wrap the house roof and neighboring trees in lights.
Fred Wood, owner of Woodside Plumbing, said he started a decorating competition with his late father, Jeff Wood, in 2015 and, with the elder Wood’s death, inherited his Christmas decorations and decided to continue the tradition.
“Me and my Dad had a small competition, and then it got out of hand,” he said.
His wife, Jamie, said, “It starts in September. It takes a long time for the tunnel. He bought a manlift to help put the lights in the trees, the tunnel lights and on the roof.”
The annual display has grown to include multiple reindeer, Santa Clauses, Christmas trees, wise men and Grinches.
The arches over the driveway are made by mounting two 10-foot sections of PVC pipe on rebar set on either side of the driveway and connecting the two with a 20-foot section of PVC pipe that arches over the driveway. Then Wood can begin to wind the colored lights around each of the arches.
“I do it mostly on weekends. I take a week off work to do it. Some people go on vacation, we put up Christmas lights,” he said. He’s helped out by his friend, Krag Helit, and his stepfather, Ricky Brutt.
Samantha, the Woods’ 13-year-old daughter, said she pitches in to an extent.
“I try to help, but I get distracted,” she said.
In addition to the lights, add in thousands of feet of extension cord and timers and it becomes a race against time to get everything set up and working by the Woods’ opening night after sunset on Thanksgiving.
“We never got all the decorations out. We always run out of time,” Wood said.
It doesn’t help that the Woods are adding to the decorations every year. Jamie Wood said after Christmas she scours post-holiday sales, hoping to add to their total.
“This year we got a penguin on a tight rope. That was Samantha’s choice. I’m looking for gingerbread men and women or a Mrs. Claus. We don’t have a Mrs. Claus,” she said. She said she also scouts yard sales year round for additions to the display.
Of course, it’s not all sparkly lights and gum drops. Fred Wood said he sometimes spends hours wrapping lights around trees only to find the strands won’t light up, meaning it all needs to come down and restrung.
Jamie Woods added some decorations’ lights just burn out or their frames succumb to the wind and weather and have to be retired.
A new addition last year, said Jamie Wood, is that the display is set to music.
“We have the lights synchronized to music. We bought a radio transmitter,” she said. Four separate boxes, each with 16 outlets for plugs are in sync with the music broadcast on the transmitter. The boxes control for separate sections of lights that blink on and off to traditional Christmas music and songs from Mannheim Steamroller and Michael Buble.
People driving past to see the display can set their car radio to 88.5 FM to hear the music, she said. Signs on both ends of the Wood property advise drivers where to set their radios.
She said the lights come on at dusk and are timed to shut off at 11:45 p.m.
“They come on again from 5:30 to 7:30 a.m. for people on their way to work and school kids to give them a little show and something to look forward to in the mornings,” Jamie Wood said.
She said the lights draw people who drive past every night to take in the sight.
“People drive by. They park off the road and stand and watch it,” she said. “It seems like people really enjoy it, though.”
“The community seems to like it. One neighbor sat out on his front porch for six hours watching it,” Fred Wood said.
Jamie Wood said the lights will continue to shine until mid-January,
“If the weather clears up, we try to get the stuff out of there,” she said. Her husband said the decorations, lights, extension cords and timers get packed away in both a tractor trailer and a 40-foot shipping container until next September, when the whole process will begin again.
