It started with just one small string of icicle-shaped lights twinkling in the December night sky.
Now, Mike de Beer’s annual Christmas light show features 30,000 bulbs burning brightly alongside a flying Santa sleigh that circles the roof of his family home.
De Beer, from Hornsby Heights, north-west of Sydney, hung that first, solitary string of Christmas lights eight years ago. Then, “the following year we added a bit more and then a bit more and it slowly grew into something much bigger than we ever imagined”.
“It’s become a huge part of our family Christmas tradition,” he says.
In the first year the family had about 20 people who came to see their Ryan Avenue display but once the word spread and de Beer added a flashing arrow at the end of their street so people could find their house it then turned into hundreds of visitors.
Every year the family uses the show to raise money for colorectal cancer research in memory of de Beer’s aunt, with the donations going towards the fund set up in her honour, the Shirley Cuff Cancer Research Foundation.
De Beer says it’s incredibly meaningful for their family to turn something they started “just for fun” into something that helps others.
“We never started doing it for fundraising and then one year someone asked us whether we were raising money and we just went, ‘oh no, we just love Christmas lights’, and then they were like, ‘oh, you should’,” de Beer says.
“So we put up a sign that said, ‘Love Christmas lights but hate cancer? Donate here’ and we made $600 in the first year.”
The family has been able to raise thousands of dollars for the foundation over the years, he says, thanks to all of the visitors who come to see their Christmas lights.
De Beer begins building the elaborate display in early November each year, and spends about a month running cables, putting up lights, replacing any damaged pieces and testing everything many times over.
“We use almost 500 metres of extension leads, so it’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work, the whole family gets involved helping pick new pieces, helping with setup and joining in for the grand switch-on,” de Beer said.
“On the first of December each year everything lights up and Santa takes to the sky.”
Powering the lights costs less than 80 cents a night, he says, but the real cost is in maintaining and upgrading the display, replacing damaged lights, adding new features and improving the setup each year.
“For me, Christmas is all about joy, community, family and faith,” de Beer says.
“What we love most is hearing kids squeal with excitement, seeing adults in awe and watching families gather together out the front of our home to share a moment of wonder.”
He says his three boys absolutely love being part of it and run outside every night to see who’s visiting.
Colleen Dancer also lives in Hornsby Heights and has been decorating her Sydney Road home with Christmas lights for the past 20 years.
“You can say that you’re on the Christmas lights street and everyone will know where you are,” she says.
“It’s become a part of people’s Christmas traditions.”
Across the road is the Joiner family, who took three days to decorate their home.
“It’s very exciting to be a part of this and it’s really for the joy that it brings the kids,” says Dave Joiner.
