Couple light up their home for Christmas for charity close to their hearts

Santa’s Grotto and a dancing Christmas display is capturing the festive spirit.

Jackie and Sean North have been running their light show and Christmas extravaganza for four years and are turning on their annual display on Saturday 30th November at 5pm. The address of the lights is 31 Eastfield Drive, Keelby, DN41 8JE, and they will be raising money for Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance.

They have 18,000 lights on their display this year, and the lights ‘dance’ and react to any music that is played. They also have a raffle to collect donations which will be drawn on the 30th November at the light switch on and prizes include a 50 inch TV, tablet, £500 and £250 cash and many more.

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Raffle tickets are £1 and can be purchased in advance on their Just Giving Page here or you can buy them at the house, more information can be found on their Facebook page.

Jackie said: “We put the lights up to raise money for charity. This year we’ve chosen Lincs and Notts Air Ambulance as my husband had an accident this year and the air ambulance was called, but luckily he wasn’t bad enough to need it, so we decided to do it for something that would have helped us this year.”

This year they have their own Santa’s grotto where children can meet Santa. Tickets are £5 and you can visit Santa on the 8th, 12th, 20th of December from 6pm-8pm. More information can be found on their Facebook page.

She said: “The children, parents and grandparents faces show that they all love it, so its really nice to see. We spend a lot of time outside talking to people and its even better when we have Santa’s grotto, as the children are so excited.

“Last year we had a big Gingerbread house and we’ve modified it to make the grotto. There is now a tunnel of lights that you walk down and round the back we have a selfie section, where you can take pictures with angel wings, the selfie elf, snowmen and more.”

They make all the lights and set them up themselves and they start preparing as early as February or March.

Jackie discussed the process, saying: “We’ve been training since earlier in the year, there’s a group on Facebook called ‘European Light Fanatics’, where people around Europe put on a light display and they host a training zoom call every Thursday to help you learn about the lights.

“We start making the lights in July and we start putting them up when it’s good weather in September. Then we test them at Halloween and on Remembrance Day to check everything is working so it isn’t as hard on the day. “

They have a few new lights this year including a tunnel, matrix and a prop with 1600 lights on it. Their light display also dances to whatever music they play.

Their decision to start raising money for charity came after a neighbour suggested it due to the extravagance of their lights. She explained: “When we moved house we had lights up and someone knocked on the door one night to ask if we had a charity bucket and told us to start raising money for charity, so then we looked into it and we thought it was a brilliant idea!”

They also have a food van at the display serving hot chocolate and brownies to keep everyone warm.

The lights will be on 4pm-9pm every night until Christmas Day.