One hundred and twenty thousand lights flash across a small yard at a home in Fort Collins. It鈥檚 the holiday light show, located at . It has five Christmas trees on the roof, a ferris wheel and see-saw filled with Christmas characters like reindeer and Santa, and occasionally, a fireball shoots into the sky.
Get top headlines and KUNC reporting directly to your mailbox each week when you subscribe to In The NoCo.
鈥淢y wife likes to describe the display as 鈥楥hristmas threw up on her house,鈥欌�� Brad Bishop, the mastermind behind the Bishop Blinkenhaus, said. 鈥淚 have probably the messiest one (display) in the state. And to me, that's just fun.鈥�
It鈥檚 been a passion project for Bishop. He鈥檚 been building big displays since 2019 and has seen around a hundred cars on any given night.
鈥淭hat was the first year where my wife said, 鈥楬ere's a $50 gift card. Go buy some lights,鈥� because she knew how bad I wanted to,鈥� he recalled. 鈥淎nd I spent that gift card and maybe a little more. Sorry, honey.鈥�
Each year, he will intentionally take everything apart and put it away randomly, so he gets the joy of building it from scratch. He also programs the light show himself, with each song taking about 8-12 hours to perfect.
He says his wife has been 鈥済enerally supportive,鈥� as long as a few conditions are met. Most of his lights were incandescent in 2020, and they soon found out that the microwave would not work anytime the show was running.
鈥淓ver since that year, that has been a recurring joke,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 also had to install blackout curtains in the front window because she did not want flashing lights for four hours every night.鈥�
Both are small prices to pay to operate the Blinkenhaus holiday display.
This show means more to Bishop than just providing smiles for the community. When he was growing up, his family didn鈥檛 have the resources to acquire many lights. Now, he can make his own show.
鈥淚 just love Christmas lights, I love going out and seeing them,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 probably spent more evenings this month going out and looking at other displays than I have been back here working on my own.鈥�
Bishop and several other homeowners start their massive installations right after Halloween, putting hundreds of hours into the setup.
Further south in Windsor, Kathy Braun and her husband John decorate their home to create the . Their home 鈥� located at 鈥� has multiple themes throughout the yard 鈥� like groupings of farm animals, cats and dogs, polar animals and more. They also have a nativity scene, a plexiglass pond, and even some random 鈥渉idden鈥� figures, like a minion.
Braun said her family has always loved Christmas decorations. One of the unique aspects of their display is that there are several vintage blow molds across their lawn of Snoopy, Santa and more. Braun has driven all the way to Omaha to get one that was nine reindeer and a sleigh, which now sits on top of the arches in her driveway.
鈥淭hey are very nostalgic to us, because our families had blow molds,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t's kind of what we were used to growing up. You know, you look in the Sears catalog and you'd see blow molds. So that's kind of what we gravitate towards.鈥�
Her Homeowners Association has been supportive of the longer take-down time, and her neighbors have even brought them meals as they decorate for weeks on end. They store the lights in their basement, in their attic in the garage, as well as their third car.
鈥淛ohn has told me that I can't buy any more stuff until we find a different storage solution, because we are full,鈥� Braun said.
She hasn鈥檛 done a final count, but last year they had around 63,000 lights and she knows there鈥檚 even more this year. Despite this, she said her electricity bill doesn鈥檛 see too much of a spike.
鈥淚t actually doesn鈥檛 increase too horribly bad,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 won't put a number out there, because this is really our gift to the community. It's not a burden.鈥�
Both Bishop and Braun said they were deeply grateful for the holiday light show by Mike and Tami Medhurst, which stopped doing shows after 2020. The trees on Bishop鈥檚 roof came from them, as did the spinning bumper cars at Braun鈥檚 house.
鈥淕reeley Griswolds were a huge inspiration to us, because since we moved to Colorado, you know, 12-14 years ago, we'd always gone to their house,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o we kind of enjoyed that, aspired to that.鈥�
She sees her house as part of the spirit of the holidays. She said the motivation that keeps her family going is all the happy squeals she can hear out of car windows passing by.
鈥淚 hope that we become part of their traditions, things that when you grow up as a kid, you look back and say, 鈥榊ou remember that one house that we always used to go to?鈥欌�� she said.
But more than anything else, Braun hopes it fills the hearts of those who need it.
鈥淎 woman came last year who had just lost her husband, and this brought her joy,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think Christmas lights are just a pure form of joy, and it brings back memories. You're creating memories. And it's just, I don't know, it's special.鈥�
The Bishop Blinkenhaus show starts at 5 p.m. and runs until 9:30 p.m., with each show running around 20 minutes. That happens every night until Jan. 1. The North Pole at Pelican Farms has static lights at 5 p.m. for those who cannot handle the flash, and the official shows start at 5:30 p.m. It runs for 20 minutes with a 10 minute intermission until 10:20. That will occur every night until Jan. 6.
