Martin Ahern’s Christmas lights display is quite literally out of this world.
“I was the average person who put up a few strings of lights, and for some reason I started to add little things here and there,” said Ahern, who has developed somewhat of an obsession with decorating for the holidays.
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Ahern spent days putting together a towering tree equipped with nearly 3,000 individually programmable lights and a candy cane assembly line of lights. He spent hours designing and building the display from scratch at his home in Moncton.
But set your phasers to stun when you go around to the backside of his house on Alexander Avenue, because you boldly go where possibly no one had gone before.
“People are kind of shocked and amazed to see it,” said Ahern.
Hovering uncloaked over his yard, Ahern made a replica of the Enterprise that is 16 feet long. He said he spent eight months hand-crafting the mother ship based on the original Star Trek series to near perfect scale.
It’s held together with wood and duct tape, and designed right down to the smallest detail.
“I tried to program it close to the original with the original colours,” said Ahern. “The saucer is in four sections and everything comes apart because you can’t built that all in one piece in the house.”
For Trekkers who drive by, it’s like Christmas has come early.
“You can’t have Christmas without Star Trek right,” said Ahern.
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His creation earned this captain of Christmas the neighbour of the year title from children on the block.
“It’s gratifying to see that that people appreciate it,” said Ahern, which he says motives him to take the display to a bold new world next year.