Yahoo News Laceby house with 20,000 Christmas lights creates magical spectacle for charity
A family have pulled out all the stops to turn their house into a spectacular Christmas light show.
Kevin Barker's house in Cooper Lane, Laceby, is decorated with 20,000 individual festive lights that run in time to hit songs. He spends months in advance planning the spectacle and revealed it takes two weeks just to hang up all the lights and props.
The lights will be officially turned on at 4pm on December 1 and Kevin said he is "nervous" but has thoroughly tested the lights and so is hopeful it will all go to plan. The show will run from 4pm to 8:30 daily up until New Year's Eve.
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Dad-of-four Kevin said any donations visitors leave will go to Grimsby Food Kitchen. Last year, the family raised more than £1,000 for Ichthyosis Support Group.
Kevin told Grimsby Live: "A lot of people are struggling with the Cost of Living and Grimsby Food Kitchen provides a good service. We had a family vote and we unanimously chose it."
Describing feedback they've received, Kevin said: "People say it's amazing. You don't see as many houses in the UK like this, more in America. It is like a show and we've chosen six or seven songs this year.
"I am very impressed with it. We've got a phenomenal show and I am really proud of what we have done."
Two of Kevin's teenage sons have programmed their own songs to synch with the lights this year. They've also helped to install some of the 20,000 lights, which would be a daunting task to attempt alone.
Kevin said: "To put it up takes the best part of a couple of weeks on and off. The testing and the actual preparation to get to that point takes several months of planning to get to that stage. It is a labour of love.
"You can't pre-buy them, you have to push the little LED lights through the props. There's a total of just under 20,000 lights we have manually had to push through so there is a lot of manual effort required.
"We had 10,000 lights last year and we've just come under the 20,000 mark this year, double from last year. It gets addictive, you want more and you want something new so you add that to your show. It will probably grow year-on-year now, I should think."
