Jackie and Allan Forbes like nothing better than shining a little light on the holiday season. In fact, they shine a great deal of light with their yearly Christmas display on their McDougal Flats property west of Sundre.
Starting more than two decades ago, the display has today grown into a three-acre winter wonderland with more than 100 inflatable winter characters and handmade items, all lit up by thousands and thousands of lights.
As they have done for the past five years, the Forbeses have opened the light park to the public, with walking paths winding through the displays and Christmas music playing from speakers in the background.
“I've been adding to it for years,” Jackie said. “I started the first couple of lights 20 years ago or more and every year I've added to it. The last five years we've let people walk through, and now we are getting lots of repeat visitors. We have people come by every day, mostly families. You can hear the kids giggling.”
Opened in the first week of December, the park remains open daily from sundown to 10 p.m. until the first week of January. It is located at the junction of Highway 584 and Rge. Rd. 6.1.
As well as a steady stream of families arriving in cars, vans and trucks every evening, busloads of seniors also make a stopoff at the property a yearly Christmas season event.
“They know that's what Christmas is about,” she said.
She explained that she doesn't map out the displays when she sets everything up in November.
“It's by gosh and by golly,” she said. “I always make the paths for people to walk on and then I put the displays all around.”
Although she doesn't have an exact count of the number of lights in the park, she said with a smile, “we use boxes and boxes and boxes of them.”
New this year is a computer-driven light display where the lights are timed with the music. Allan, who describes himself as “Jackie's helper”, got that new display up and running.
Keeping all the displays lit up doesn't come cheap.
“It's about $900 for the month,” she said.
Asked if she plans to keep expanding the park in years to come, Jackie said, “Every year it gets bigger and we are not nearly at the limit.”
So why does she put all the effort into the light park every year?
“I love it. I really do. I've always liked Christmas lights and for me it's Christmas. Hearing the kids giggling and carrying on, it's all worth it,” she said.
