A family could be forced to close their Christmas display after only getting seven visitors. Darren Lucas and his family put on a stunning festive light show every year to raise money for charity, reports Wales Online.
Known to their neighbours as the 'Christmas House', the display in Wales regularly attracted visitors to marvel at the decorations. It is not something that appears overnight however, and in the past the Lucas family have started getting ready 11 months prior to the festive season.
They prep the display by planting Christmas trees in their garden and a log cabin for Santa. The Lucases also clear room for the towering snowman that sits in their garden.
This year was no exception and the family went about setting up an even bigger and better Christmas display than previous years. However, with engagement lacking it has prompted Darren to consider switching off the display.
He said: "I've been doing it for 30 years. My son decided to take over and he has been working so hard on it. We do it as a family because we have autism and we feel like we are not being heard. So every year, we try and raise money and awareness for an autism charity as well as other charities.
"What's disappointing this year is that we've set it all up but we've only had seven visitors. We've always had an amazing following but just this year nobody has been. We don't know why - we didn't finish it until the second week of December so perhaps the delay caused it. We are self-funded, we do it all ourselves, that's what we do. We just love it."
Although, the father admitted his 'disappointment' for the family's efforts not being noticed, he insisted he is more concerned for the charities. This year, the family were aiming to fundraise for Mind, Cat Protection and The League of Friends. Despite being able to raise £20,000 over the past four years, Darren admits this years fundraising efforts have been 'very poor'.
He said: "Usually, by now we will have filled 20-30 tins. But at the moment, we are still on the first one, which is sad really. We wanted to close it down. My son, who built it all up, said to me 'I feel like closing it all down'.
"But I said, 'Don't do that, you've worked so hard on this'. We will never give up, we are so passionate about it. We'd love to see more people to come."
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here .
