Sightseers have often stopped in front of Barbara and Bob McConnell’s Kirkland home during the Christmas season in awe of the 40,000 colorful bulbs that have lit up their yard the past nine years.
But this year, it’s been a true labor of love, Barbara says.
On a recent evening, Bob hobbled down his front steps on crutches to greet some neighbors who had walked over to see the lights.
“The first day Bob started to get the lights on the roof he fell on our deck and broke his hip,” Barbara said.
After an emergency surgery, Bob spent three days in the hospital. But seizing the Grinch, he went back to work as soon as he got out of the hospital. With some help of a few “elf” friends, they got the 40,000 lights strung on their roof, over some trees and through their yard.
It’s a mini-winter wonderland of sorts. Every night beginning at 5 p.m., the McConnell’s yard at 13837 101st Place Northeast is aglow with a white snowman and animated reindeer dipping their noses into a cascading blue stream that flows from the backyard. Illuminated wreaths hung above their porch and rows of Christmas trees in the yard pulse red, green and blue to Christmas beats like Jingle Bells.
“It’s so wonderful,” Barbara said of the community’s response to their computer synchronized light display, which benefits Pasado’s Safe Haven, an animal rescue organization. People can throw suggested donations into a bucket posted to the couple’s fence in their front yard. “We’ll have children come and young adults come and they’ll turn their music on in the car and get out and dance in the street to the music. We just love that.”
They also live on a limousine route, so they get limos that pull up too.
The McConnell’s use a low-powered FM transmitter that is synchronized with the lights, so folks can listen to the lineup of eight songs from the warmth of their cars by tuning in to FM 107.3. Some sightseers stay for the half hour lineup; others stay longer and listen to favorite Christmas tunes over and over, especially on Fridays and Saturdays when the show runs until 11 p.m. On Christmas Eve and night, it will run until midnight.
To put it all together, it takes the McConnell’s nearly a month. After they take down their mini-Halloween light display, they get all the Christmas lights –- mostly all high-efficiency LEDs — up right after Thanksgiving.
A musician by trade, Bob was inspired to put on an animated light show after he watched a holiday light parade during a trip to Disney World years ago.
But the true inspiration is the couple’s peppered Welsh corgis that they have rescued over the years: 13-year-old Maggie, 6-year-old Max and Michael, 5. And their first corgi, Sam, who passed away two years ago.
“This is actually a tribute. Sam used to love the people and the lights. So he would come out and greet everyone and enjoy the lights himself,” said Barbara, wiping tears and pointing to an illuminated corgi on the lawn. “Actually, we have a little corgi here that’s kind of our angel Sam watching over everything.”
Editor Carrie Wood can be reached at cwood@kirklandreporter.com or 425-822-9166, ext. 5050.
