A Regina man has made himself the real life Clark Griswold by going beyond the limits of a standard Christmas lights display.
Outdoing Chevy Chase's character from the classic '80s movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," Trevor Allen’s light show incorporates 76,000 bulbs sequenced to 11 songs. The fictional Griswold, who covers his entire home in lights, claims to use 25,000 bulbs.
Christmas trees, stars, snowflakes and fences all light up in sequence with classic and modern holiday songs played on speakers outside the house as well as a local FM radio station.
Allen grew up fascinated with lights and sound and Christmas has always been his favourite season. He got the idea to combine his passions after seeing Clark Griswold’s holiday lights on TV.
“Once I saw National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, I had to put the lights and sound together to create this type of display,” he said.
Trevor Allen’s builds all his lights and props by hand with the help of a machine he built using his 3D printer.
For Allen, the Christmas season begins in August when he starts testing all of his props. Once September hits, he’s in his garage every night and all weekend long designing new ideas. He uses Halloween and Remembrance Day as test runs for the light shows.
“It’s countless hours every night doing it,” he said.
Allen’s props and decorations can’t be bought from a store. He builds them all by hand with the help of a machine he built using his 3D printer. Most of the props are made out of wood with the exception of some 3D printed accessories. He then wires all of them with lights.
“That is the one thing I'm proud of about my shows, I haven't bought a single prop,” Allen said.
Trevor Allen's house is the brightest on the block, by far.
But he said the most time-consuming task is sequencing the music, which can take hundreds of hours to fine tune just one song.
“Picking the songs is probably one of the hardest parts because you have to find a song that has different beats and different tones,” Allen said.
“When I'm doing the song sequencing, I'm playing the song hundreds to thousands of times over and over … by the time I'm done the song, I just don't hear it anymore.”
Allen’s house is the brightest on the block, by far, and he credits his neighbours for allowing him to do it each year with their support.
Christmas trees, stars, snowflakes and fences all light up in sequence with classic and modern holiday songs played on speakers outside Trevor Allen's house as well as a local FM radio station.
There’s not an official count, but Allen said thousands of people from across the city come to see the show throughout the month of December.
“It's kind of introduced our neighborhood to the Christmas season,” said Allen’s neighbour Les Caragata, who often watches the lights from his backyard hot tub.
“He's put a lot of work into it and we really enjoy it.”
Allen is thankful that over the years vandals have left his yard relatively unscathed and he is hopeful his tradition can last for many Christmases to come.
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