A family recognized for their spectacular Christmas displays has revealed their latest creation for this year – showcasing enormous ornaments, illuminated reindeer, and a Santa Claus in motion.
The Clark family have been staging the stunning display, which can be seen along Colonels Lane in Boughton-under-Blean near Canterbury, since 2018.
Ross and Michelle Clark have put up the stunning display in memory of their late son Jack, who died in 2002 after being born at just 21 weeks old.
In honor of his memory, the Clarks decorate their house with these intricate displays annually, all set to sparkle on November 24, Jack’s birthday.
This year they are raising funds for charity The Oliver Fisher Special Care Baby Trust at Medway Maritime Hospital.
The family home has long been one of the UK’s most spectacular Christmas lights displays featuring over 80,000 lights and 3,000 ornaments.
The family, which also includes son Lewis, 21, and Ellie, 23, aim to make their light display bigger and bigger each year.
Ross estimated to have spent as much as £30,000 on lights and decorations throughout the years.
They spend nearly a month installing the decorations each year, which are kept in a rented storage unit throughout the rest of the year.
In an interview with The Mirror last year, Ross explained, ‘Planning is a massive undertaking. You need to strategize where everything will be placed in relation to the electrical outlets and the length of cords. We’ve set up a section with a safari theme and another with a North Pole setting complete with a waterfall.’
‘We also have a giant snowman and a snow machine, and put out candy canes for the kids. Every year I buy more stuff and just add as I go along. I’ve become a bit of a hoarder.’ The Clark family home is so bright, it can be seen from the nearby M2 motorway. ‘I just hope it doesn’t cause any accidents.
‘We have a Facebook group where people post their pictures and selfies,’ he added. ‘There’s no feeling like it. The way I see it, people spend their money on cars or going out, this is just what I like.’
The family home is covered with a sheet of colourful fairy lights and the garden is adorned with light up ornaments such a polar bears, reindeer and penguins.
Christmas tracks were blared from speakers to get visitors in the festive spirit.
Meanwhile an Australian family has been ordered by their local council to remove part of their Christmas light display because it extends beyond their property boundary, following complaints from a neighborhood Grinch.
The Harris family only had the festive lights outside their Blue Mountains home, west of Sydney, up for two weeks before a council ranger knocked on their door over a complaint about the display.
‘The ranger said the person even called themselves “the Christmas Grinch” when they called [council] up,’ a family member told 9News.
The complaint centred on the use of three poles, which were installed on the nature strip in front of the property to support lights strung from the poles to the roof of the house.
The family explained that they used the poles as a replacement for two trees that the council had removed earlier this year.
‘Last year we had the lights strung up by the trees, and we didn’t receive any complaints,’ they said.
‘When the trees got removed so quickly we were actually devastated for the Christmas lights, so we were like, “How can we recreate the same thing without it being permanent?”‘
They added that the lights have become a popular attraction for locals, with many stopping by the house during the festive season to take photos.
The family member said that adding the poles was less intrusive than using the trees and that they had invested significant effort and expense to install them.
The inspiration behind the curtain-like lights was to make a ‘magical area’ that would be akin to ‘running under the stars’.
They now have two-week deadline to take down the curtain lights, but are hopeful someone at the council will see the lights as ‘not that unreasonable’ and not enforce it.
Blue Mountains City Council Mayor Mark Greenhill told Daily Mail Australia that the family plans to comply with the council’s request to keep the display within the property boundaries.
