Neighborhood light display attracts hundreds

WASILLA — Driving south on the Parks Highway near Walmart in December, passersby may notice a lot of flashing lights to their left.

About 10 houses on South Vicki Way in Wasilla now participate in a winter holiday light show led by Raquel “Kelly” Armstrong, who owns Fubar Equipment, LLC and rents several units on the street. The lights on and around all the neighborhood’s houses are synced up to Christmas music, which drivers can listen to in their vehicles by tuning to 104.7 FM — an open channel through which Armstrong’s playlist of more than 30 songs can be transmitted.

Pam Eaches, who recently moved to the neighborhood with her family, said she was excited to be a part of the show for the first time last winter.

“We’ve only lived here a year and a half but before that we would go down the street and 'ooh and ah' during Christmas,” she said.

However, to their initial dismay, the landlord of the house the family moved into had taken down the lights, not assuming Eaches would want to participate.

“We were disappointed because we knew this was the street,” she said.

So they marched over to Armstrong’s home and asked how they could get back the lights, (most of which are owned and distributed by Armstrong).

“We said, ‘we wanna play too!’” Eaches said.

Armstrong was happy to oblige.

“Every year it gets bigger and bigger,” she said, of the show.

Though she grew up at the end of the Vicki Way, Armstrong only moved back to the street six or seven years ago, and created the light display as a one-home, one-woman show. She said her extravagant decorating hadn’t been a family tradition by any means, but that it maybe made up for some dark times in her past.

“When I was a kid, Christmases weren’t always the greatest,” Armstrong said.

She said the same was true for her child, for a time, and that the show is both a promise to her family to not let the holidays ever be gloomy again, and a way to give back to her community.

“The Christmas show for me is to bring joy and happiness to other people, and especially the children,” Armstrong said.

The show doesn’t come about without hard work, though. Armstrong said she and her secretary, Lorna Olszak, and family started organizing things in September, and began placing lighted lawn ornaments in yards in October. Then it was a matter of setting up control boxes at each house, purchasing Light-O-Rama software sequences to match the motion of the lights to the music, and collecting candy canes to pass out on Christmas Day.

Come Dec. 1, the show was ready to go.

Over the course of the month, Armstrong said she’s seen an average of 250 to 300 cars a day pass through the neighborhood, counting as many as 100 in one hour right around Christmas.

Armstrong said she doesn’t mind the 24/7 lights or near constant traffic around her home.

“I enjoy it,” she said.

The increased electricity bill — each resident pays their own — isn’t too bad either, she said. Armstrong estimated that the show adds about $30-35 for the month, thanks in part to her use of mostly LED lighting (which she said lasts longer and uses less electricity than incandescent lights).

Although this is the third year the whole neighborhood has participated in the drive-through exhibit, it’s the first that Armstrong put out a donation and comment box. She said struggled with the idea of even obliquely asking for money, then realized it wasn’t about her or her neighbors’ needs.

“It's not about people paying for it, it’s that I’m not receiving a blessing that's being given to me, I’m not allowing (people) to do what they feel led to do,” Armstrong said.

The positive comments she received this year, at least, were overwhelming.

“It brings me so much joy to hear how many people are happy with this,” she said. “If that is the only thing that I ever leave from this life … then that made my life worth living.”

Armstrong said she plans to take down the lights on Jan. 2, and eventually develop a Facebook page for the show, tentatively titled, “The Loving Light of Christmas.”

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.