Mt. Shasta, Ore.- You know it’s almost Christmas when you see lights … lots and lots of lights.
But David and Cathy Athens take their Christmas decorations to the next level.
“He got the fever,” Cathy said.
The bright light display spans one acre with Santa, all his reindeer, hundreds of cartoon characters, and more than 50 Christmas trees.
“We enjoy it,” David said.
“We love giving back to the community and seeing the kids faces when they come here and run around and get to see Santa Claus,” she said.
And if you’re wondering how many lights they have.
“If I had to go count I would say we were looking at 100,000,” he said
A 100,000 lights that start being hung months in advance.
“When we started doing it kind of big we started a the end of October,” Cathy said.
But even that’s not enough time. The end of October, turned into the middle of the month, and now they start decorating shortly after the first.
“It’s a lot of work, a lot of work,” Cathy said. “We have to figure out where we are going to put everything. It take him two or three days to figure out the wiring and electrical.”
But it wasn’t always like this, more than a decade ago David wasn’t exactly Kris Kringle.
“I had a little 4-foot fiber optic tree and that was all the Christmas stuff I did,” he said.
That all changed, when he met Cathy.
“She says, ‘honey can you put some lights up around the house?’ I said okay and I put lights up around the house and that’s what started the whole thing,” he said.
Now after 11 years of marriage, they’re putting on a show for the entire community to enjoy.
“He’s the one who just had that little Christmas tree when I first met him and I’m like that’s all you have,but he got hooked it didn’t take long,” Cathy said.
You can visit the free light display at 936 Douglas Lane in Mt. Shasta any day of the week. It will be up until January 3.
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