Palgrave house features 75,000 Christmas lights

Written By JOSHUA SANTOS

A Palgrave family is working together to present a cascade of lights during the holiday season.

Nadine Mercieca, her husband Brian and their children have been working since September to showcase their Christmas lights to the community. Their house is located on 5 Coates Hill Crt.

“We'll start when the weather is a little warmer and then that way when it gets to weeks like this where we get too much snow or too rain and can't do much, at least we have the majority of stuff out there a head of time.”

Mercieca said her husband saw on YouTube of a house that was animated and lit up, wanting to do that.

“We decided to slowly put the project together, said Mercieca. We built our own sleighs, we did our snowflakes, we did our mega trees; a lot of the stuff would go in the garage in the summer time and we'd be making stuff and people would be like ‘it's summer, what are you doing making Christmas stuff”? We just love it, and now that we have the kids, seeing the expression on their face now, they get right into it too, they love it.”

New this year is a polar bear for visitors to sit in while they take pictures of the light show. The Merciecas held a contest asking residents to name the new polar bear. The winner is Pamela Hill. Hill won a $100 gift card for Toys R Us for choosing the name Aurora.

“I think it's been about six or seven months, we've been trying to figure out what we can put out there for people to sit in and take a picture while there here dropping off a toy,” said Mercieca. We saw the polar bear, and we had it shipped up here from the states.”

She said they've been doing the lightshow since 2008, when they used to live on Landsbridge Street in Bolton. They skipped a year, got married, had children and now they started doing the show in Palgrave.

“When we moved, the people who bought our house they had told us they actually had people saying ‘what happened to all of the lights?' They had to tell them that we had moved. When we were off for that one year, people didn't know where we had gone.”

Visitors who view the show are encouraged to donate a new and unwrapped toy (due to infection control purposes) to the toy drive box stationed outside the house.

“We decided when we initially started the show, to do a toy drive for Sick Kids, said Mercieca. Sick Kids has been really good at supporting us, as they do with anyone. We get the toys and donate them down to the hospital. We do drop before Christmas and we do another one in the New Year once the show has been closed down.

“Being on Landsbridge, it was a busier street. The last year that we did it there, we had collected about 2,000 toys. Up here, it's a little harder because we're a little bit more north, so we don't have as much traffic coming through, plus we're on a dead-end street. It's a little harder but so far, the last few years we've done it up here, we've collected about 200 toys, which is good. We're happy even if we have 50 toys Being up here, it allowed us to expand the show a little bit more too.”

Mercieca said she wanted to donate to the Sick Kids Hospital Foundation after her involvement with the Meagan's Walk. The mission of the walk is to share the message of hope, to increase public awareness about brain tumours and the devastating effects they have on children and their families, according to the foundation's website.

“I used to do the Meagan's Walk, for Sick Kids,” said Mercieca. Being at the hospital, when they join hands and do the circle of hope around the hospital and seeing the kids there in the hospital, it tears at your heart strings. That was the first thing that came to our mind.

“We didn't want to donate money per say, because the money doesn't really go to the kids, particularly. Sick Kids, they explained to us, that they get an abundance of toys and they basically will give them out to other third parties. Regardless, you know that somewhere, some child is going to get that toy. What kid doesn't want a toy?”

Mercieca said she is part of a Facebook group called, Crazy for Christmas Lights, Eh, where Canadians across the country, who have their own light show, share ideas and help each other out.

“I don't know how much bigger we're going to grow but it's great because they give you ideas,” said Mercieca. We'll see what the other houses have and then you reach out to them and they'll share their ideas on how they put it together. In a way, it's kind of a compliment to the people, when you want to use something they have in their show.”

The lights are scheduled to be on every day from Dec. 1 to Jan. 1 2019. From Monday to Thursday, it be on from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, it will be on from 5 p.m. to midnight. On Christmas Eve and Day and News Year's Eve and Day, it will be on from 5 p.m. to midnight.