American homes get ready for a Christmas light bonanza

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The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago

I’ve always been a pushover for a good “son et lumière” — the kind of sound and light spectacular that used to require a trip to a French château, a far-flung ancient ruin, or at the very least, the Bellagio Las Vegas. 

Now, however, more and more of my neighbours in suburban Chicago are staging their own homey Midwestern version. I’d feared some might turn off the lights this year for economic reasons. But not so: it seems this quintessentially American version of retail therapy — buying giant illuminated, inflatable reindeer for the front lawn — is pretty inflation proof. 

And not just among the rich. Many of the elaborate holiday-lights-synchronised-to-Jingle-Bells shows near Chicago are in middle or working-class areas. A friend in hurricane-hit North Carolina reports seeing a large inflatable Santa decorating an emergency trailer. Last week, America kicked off the 12th season of the Great Christmas Light Fight — a reality TV competition to see who can produce the most elaborate home display. Last year’s show featured a property carpeted with 4mn lights.

“Consumers have continued to prioritise holidays and other special events even as they have moderated or adjusted other areas of their spending,” the National Retail Federation said in a statement. Americans plan to spend $902 per person on holiday gifts, of which $71 is for holiday decorations, up 17 per cent since before the pandemic, according to NRF figures.

“People engage in a lot of counterfactual thinking when it comes to money,” says Krystine Batcho, an expert on the psychology of nostalgia at Le Moyne College. “When people have certain trigger situations [like worries about the economy or the recent election] nostalgia really does give them a little respite.”

But nostalgia isn’t cheap. Homeowners are spending more on increasingly elaborate and professionally installed lights. Technicians provide the lights, put them up, take them down and cart them away afterwards. One local installer quoted me $150-$250 for a 1,000 sq ft home and $500-$1,300 for a 5,000 sq ft residence. Installers say demand is also being driven partly by new “permanent” lights that cost more but remain up all year. They can be customised from a smartphone for every holiday, sporting event or special occasion.

Mike Soukup reckons he has spent $2,500-$5,000 over the past seven years to put together a “minimalist” 5,000-bulb light show for his home on the outskirts of Chicago. Neighbours, and other holiday light tourists like me, park outside his home, tune their car radio to an FM frequency that can only be picked up nearby, and enjoy a free 30 minutes of flashing lights synchronised to holiday tunes. Sometimes the Soukup family hands out candy canes.

Soukup, a software engineer, told me he resisted the temptation to decorate for years after seeing his first home sound-and-light show online about 20 years ago. “No one even knew that was possible,” he told me as he demonstrated the computer software that operates the show from his study. “But it got passed around the ‘nerd culture’”. The “technical aspects” intrigued him, he says. But he thought it would cost too much in terms of time and money.

Eventually, more people got involved, the price of LED light “pixels” and other infrastructure fell, and open source software became available to operate the shows. “I realised it wasn’t as expensive as I thought it would be”, he told me, adding that the electricity to run it for a night is about the same as “running a hair dryer.”

Brett Foy, whose 75,000-light show was featured on this season’s Great Christmas Light Fight, describes it as an “investment of passion that brings joy” — and costs less than golf. “In moments of darkness, whether personal or national, when people come and see this show they are transported out of that head space into pure joy,” he says. I may not make it to the Pyramids or the Loire Valley for a light show soon — but there are plenty of nostalgic offerings closer to home. It gets dark early these days: lots of time to tour the local son et lumière circuit, before the night is done.