Bob Fedina’s 70,000 festive lights twinkle only one month of the year, but ideas flicker in his mind all year round for additions to his Christmas display.
The pink flamingos, palm tree and horse-drawn pumpkin carriage on the family’s lawn at 74th Avenue and 108th Street are a small sample of the Fedina family’s passion for putting on a display.
It all started with an innocent remark by his wife, Dawn, who told her husband one year how much she loved Christmas lights. That first year there were maybe 5,000 lights.
"I didn’t get stupid about it until about five or six years ago," he said, with a rueful grin.
Now, Fedina puts in serious time to add substantial sparkle to the neighbourhood.
"I take time off work and it takes two weeks solid," he said, seated across the room from a lit-up snowman waving at passersby. (The snowman is Fedina’s idea of irony: "You’re outside and the snowman’s waving to you from inside.")
From his perch, he has a good view of the rubbernecking traffic. Not one car drives by at regular speed. Plenty of people get out for a closer look, even in the frigid weather. When he’s outside tending the show, they thank him for his efforts.
Fedina appreciates the compliments. It’s part of what keeps him going.
Sometimes when he’s setting it all up — and this year part of that work happened during a snowstorm — he wonders what he’s got himself into.
"This year I thought, ‘This is getting too big.’ But then you flip the switch and it feels good when it’s done. It’s kind of a rush."
His daughters Nikita, 9, and Willow, 7, also love the show.
"To be honest, it’s my hobby," said Fedina, a carpenter by trade. "It’s an all-year thing. In the summer, I’ll be welding things up."
His creations range from a palm tree, to this year’s addition of moving waves. "A lot of these things I had to make, because Canadian Tire only goes so far."
Fedina flicks the switch on the display in the first weekend of December. They’re on nightly until the first weekend in January. The lights shine from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., and one hour in the mornings, "because that’s when the school buses roll by."
Nikita and Willow say their school bus driver dawdles to take in the sight. The two of them help their father build and repair things, and have even been up on the roof.
Their mother runs endless trips to the dollar store for more extension cords.
The display costs about $300 in electricity, a tab that Fedina has been able to keep steady the last few years by substituting LEDs, even though the overall number of bulbs has grown. He shrugs off the extra utility cost.
"That’s peanuts. It’s the $50,000 of lights and extension cords that add up."
hbrooymans@thejournal.canwest.com
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