Each year, Griffith’s Roy Marando spends months preparing his own little slice of Christmas cheer.
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Starting on June 1, he decks out his Holmes Crescent home with more than 170,000 Christmas lights.
170,016 to be precise.
“I’ve got 583 sets of lights,” Mr Marando said.
“There’s also 427 trees.”
It takes Mr Marando about 200 hours to assemble his Christmas wonderland, working nights and weekends to get everything ready before he flicks the switch on December 1. This year, his 11th doing the Christmas light display, he even took holidays from his day job to work on the yard.
However, it’s not just about big lights and bigger power bills, Mr Marando uses the lights as a fundraiser for local charities.
Last year, he raised $1900 for Griffith branch of the Australian Diabetes Council and Griffith Base Hospital and this year he’ll be donating to the children’s ward at the hospital.
“I had 10,250 come through last year,” Mr Marando said.
“I get lots of visitors from overseas coming to have a look as well.
“I want people to get out of their cars and come walk around and enjoy the display.”
Every year Mr Marando chooses a different theme for the display so there’s always something different to look at. Last year’s theme was ‘pretty in pink’ while this year is ‘strawberry fields and blue’.
“People tell me each year how amazed they are that the lights are so different,” Mr Marando said.
“I hand out lolly bags to the kids and every night there’s a prize for best and worst dressed.”
On Christmas Eve, a choir made up of Tracey Howard’s students will sing and people will be able to get photos with Santa Claus himself.
“My brother Sam dresses up as Santa,” Mr Marando said. “We call him Samta.”
The lights shine brightly until January 2, when Mr Marando begins the 50-hour task of pulling them all down again. He said it takes until about March to get everything packed away into two entire bedrooms inside his home.
“Then I take a break for a couple of months before I start it all over again,” Mr Marando said.
The Area News is looking for the most impressive Christmas light displays to feature in the newspaper and on an online Christmas Lights Map.
Do you have an impressive Christmas lights display?
Add your house or business to Griffith’s Christmas Lights Map.
Simply fill in the form including your name, address and a photograph of your display and it will be added to the map.