The Christmas parade was cancelled, the 30-lb feast bird may be replaced by rotisserie, and elders are making due with video-conferencing the grandkids instead of hugging anyone. But one holiday tradition remains untouched by epidemic -- the joy that can be drawn from twinkling lights.
“We all need Christmas more than ever this year,” says Don Jackson, the driving force behind what could be the most elaborate lighted house in town, at 113 McCraney Street W.
The Jackson family home has been a seasonal destination for several years and this year is no different. Festooned in over 50,000 Christmas lights in all their vivid blinking glory, the house boasts its own web page, and an FM channel so people can hear the music that accompanies the light show from the safety of their own cars. The operation requires two kilometres of extension cords and five extra outdoor outlets, installed by an electrician friend.
Don, a self-described “Professional Holiday Illumination Engineer” , got hooked on the hobby as a child summoned to help his dad hang the Christmas lights his mother loved so much. Don remembers his dad not loving the lights quite as much. “He was always kind of cranky about it,” Don recalls. “I was eight years old when my dad asked me for the first time to help him put up the Christmas lights. I was over the moon! I would get to work alongside my dad on this important job! Well, it quickly deteriorated into, ‘Don, hand me the screwdriver. No! Not THAT screwdriver!’”
As any boyhood hope of scaling ladders side-by-side with dad evaporated into a long boring ordeal of passing tools, Don grew to dread the pre-holiday chore. “Finally by the time I was 12, when that day arrived and my mom said it’s time to put up the lights, I said, ‘Dad, why don’t you take this year off?’”
Though he couldn’t quite reach the roof, Don set to work stringing up the lights around the bedroom windows, and winding them around the bushes out front. “When I was done, I looked up, and my mom was in tears. And Dad was happy too. That’s what started it all.”
Fast forward 35 years and grownup Don, along with his wife and partner in Christmas, Deb Jackson, and their three children, Tanner, Emma and Courtney, are moving into their current home, an upgrade in frontage from the townhouse they had before, just up the street. Being who he is, Don took one look at the house and thought it would make an incredible canvas for their Christmas display.
Over the past 12 years, the Jacksons kept adding more and different lights, with the programmed choreography starting in 2013, and charity collection beginning the year after. Needless to say, the family has gotten creative in finding ways to store their growing collection of Christmas decorations.
Deb calculates that the light show has generated more than $15,000 in donations for various - charities, and over 3000 lbs of food bank contributions since they started collecting in 2014. This year, the family has set the goal of raising $5,000 for ROCK (Reach Out Center for Kids) and the Kelly Shires Foundation Breast Cancer Foundation. Tanner, 23, has been busy putting in countless hours programming up the new RGB (tricolour) pixel lights on the roof and on newly fabricated trees. The new technology has allowed Tanner to choreograph new songs and extend the show to 20 minutes without a repeat sequence.
“I wanted the lights to tell a story,” Tanner explains. “I think light and colour is very powerful in its ability to convey a message. Different colours represent different emotions, which can be heard in the music. The lights just dance.
How did he learn how to choreograph outdoor light displays? “Flying by the seat of my pants since I was 12, with my dad yelling at me while I’m on a ladder helping him out with this display,” Tanner jokes.
“Some things never change!” Don chimes in.
All five members of the Jackson family help doing tasks large and small, especially the enormous effort involved in untangling and testing strings of lights each fall as preparations begin in earnest. Pro tips: “Always check your strings before you put them up!” Tanner suggests. “And always tape the connection between extension cord and the light string with electrical tape to keep the moisture out,” Don adds.
This year their usual December 1 opening was delayed by a few days because they had to cancel their traditional “friends and family” work bee Thanksgiving weekend. Instead of dozens of helpers, the work fell to six exterior volunteers and the family themselves. But the show is on now, every night from 4:30 p.m. until 10:30 p.m. on weeknights and until 11:30 p.m. weekends until January 3.
Visitors are reminded to please not block neighbour's driveways and to circle around the block for a second pass if necessary. Any neighbourhood grinches who may have sniffed in the past about the increased traffic have largely resigned themselves to Christmas taking over their block. "I've noticed neighbours have started stepping up their decorating game," Tanner remarks. "If you can’t beat 'em join 'em!"
For Tanner, the family tradition has turned into a business as friends of the family hired him to light their homes, resulting in social media referrals for other jobs. “I started a business by accident with this,” Tanner says. Going by Jackson of All Trades, he was hired to light almost 30 homes around Oakville this season. “I have some proprietary things coming out shortly in terms of exterior home lighting,” he adds, gamely.
Asked if he has always loved Christmas lights as much as his dad, Tanner says, “my passion for it has really grown over the years, and now I’m older and I can see the joy it brings to people. It has a lot of meaning for me.”
“We enjoy this as a family, all the hustle and bustle, the team effort that’s involved,” says Don. “Of course there’s curse words going back and forth during the process but it’s a big undertaking, so that’s to be expected.”
Don’s mother passed away in November 2009, the same year they moved into the McCraney Street house, so she never got to see her son’s latest Christmas display. “The biggest thing for us,” says Tanner, “is we started doing this because it brought us joy. It brought my dad and mom joy, and it brought my nana joy. She inspired my dad, as my dad inspires me today. Now the goal is to light up the house so bright she can see them from heaven.”
Once again, they are collecting for the Kelly Shires Breast Cancer Foundation, The R.O.C.K. Oakville (Reach Out Center For Kids) & The Kerr St. Mission Food Bank. There is a mailbox on the island for cash donations and a plastic bin for non-perishable food items. Donations can also be made online @ www.jacksonlights.ca
Across Oakville, home dwellers, organizations and businesses continue to brighten the long nights with Christmas light displays. See our December 2 article featuring some of the best lights this year. Oakville News has assembled a driving route map of a dozen notable Christmas light displays around Oakville, including the Jackson Family Light Show.