By Gabriella Payne
The festive season is a special time of year full of joy and excitement and in recent weeks, the streets of Pakenham have slowly been lighting up with Christmas cheer.
You may have stumbled upon some pretty impressive Christmas displays already, but one local family has pulled out all the stops this year, illuminating their home with tens of thousands of twinkling lights in an effort to make Christmas a magical occasion for everyone – all while raising money for a good cause.
Martin and Kelly (both keen Christmas enthusiasts) love decorating their Kristina Court home each year for the festive season – but the young couple decided to take it up a notch this time around.
“We’ve been putting up Christmas displays for about five years or so, but this is our third year since moving to Kristina Court,“ Martin said.
“Last year we had about 50,000 lights, but this year we’ve almost doubled that, so I would guess there’s anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 lights up right now.
“And across the road is very similar, they have a slightly different set up to us – but between us we both have a lot of lights!“ he laughed.
“We just love doing it and thought why not do it for charity to raise money at the same time?“
For the past few years, Martin and Kelly have used their spectacular light display to raise awareness and funds for different children’s charities, and this year they chose to support Camp Quality – a charity that provides support to children living with cancer and their families.
“Previously we’ve supported Variety and Make-a-Wish and this year we chose Camp Quality – so we’ve got a big sign out the front with a fundraising tin and some banners where people can leave a little donation if they want,“ Martin explained.
“We don’t force people to donate, it’s just there if they want to, but every cent helps and we hope to raise as much as we can for the charity.“
Martin said the planning and installation of their intricate light display took about a month in total to complete – but it was well worth it to see the delight that it spread throughout the local community.
“It does take a while.
“Kelly usually draws up the map of what she wants and then I have to figure out how I’m going to make it all work in real life, but we usually start with the top and work our way down.
“I try and put all the plugs in logical spots so that I can find spots for the transformers to power it all!“ he laughed.
Despite what you might think, Martin said that it doesn’t actually take much electricity to power their luminous set-up, and instead was “about the same as running a big fridge“ because all the lights are LED.
Martin said that after all the lockdowns and hard times this year, he, Kelly and their three year old son hoped their cheery display would help brighten up people’s days.
The family’s lights are switched on at 8.30pm each night (until Christmas) with the best time to view them about 9pm.
If you’re looking for some more impressive festive displays in the area, a nifty list has been compiled by Melbourne Playgrounds, head to melbourneplaygrounds.com.au/christmas-lights-outer-east-melbourne to see what’s happening in your neighbourhood!
