Twinkle twinkle: Festive family deck their house with 10,000 Christmas lights

It’s usually considered bad luck to put Christmas decorations up before the official ‘12 days of Christmas’ have begun.

But that doesn’t seem to have stopped John and Jean Copestick, both 74, from Birmingham, who’ve already draped their home with more than 10,000 lights.

The couple, who live with their two foster sons aged 25 and 27, started decking their halls at the beginning of September and have just added the finishing touches.

Their festive decorations include snowmen, tinsel, flashing lights, a giant Santa Claus and a whole lot of fairy lights.

With the help of their daughter and son-in-law, they put up £7,000 worth of decorations inside and outside their semi-detached house in Stirchley, Birmingham.

And this isn’t the first time the family has gone full-steam ahead for the festive season.

John said: ‘We’ve been doing it about 30 years, maybe longer.

‘A lot of it is for the children at the local schools who come every year to see it, that’s mostly why I like to do it.’

‘The teachers bring them, sometimes they bring the special needs children where my lads went to school – they used to bring a coach load of them.

‘I know it’s a little early – but we just love Christmas.

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‘If you saw their faces when they walk in you’d understand, especially the little ones. They think its just magic.

‘We have a nice big tree, chocolates everything.

‘We’ve got snowmen, scenery, gingerbread houses and loads of Father Christmases.’

‘We used to have a big Santa and a sleigh on the roof but I can’t get up there anymore.

‘The decorations we’ve got in the back garden, you can’t buy them anymore. So I have to keep on patching them up as best as I can.

‘People think they are amazing but some think we’re showing off. We aren’t. If you don’t like them then ignore them.

‘The living room is 95 square yards and that’s got ceiling coverage with decorations on, all the lights going around.

‘Everything lights up, shelves, lights around the shelves, everything.’

‘When people knock we switch the lights on if they are coming in,’ Jean added.

‘John has even had Sunday dinner and stopped when people came round and showed them.

‘He doesn’t care what he’s doing, he will stop and say, ‘come on in’ and switch them all on for them.

‘Neighbours love it, they say we remind them of Christmas and then start putting theirs up.

‘But we are the only one in the street who light up the whole house.’