In the spring, Jimmy Cook fills his flowerbeds with day lilies and knockout roses. During the Christmas season, he fills them with lights as part of his “winter gardening.”
Cook’s property is decked in inflatable decorations, string lights, garland, lighted sculptures and much more, making up what he estimates to be about 80,000 lights on two acres between his yard and his son’s neighboring yard.
The Cooks will host a tour of their yards tonight and Saturday night beginning at 5:30. Santa and Mrs. Claus will give tours and hand out candy and hot chocolate.
The home is located at 32 Fondren Drive in New Hope, on the corner of Ben Christopher Road and Fondren Drive.
Jay Cook, Cook’s son who lives next door and helps put up the lights and decorations, said the family puts on the annual Christmas event because it is one of few places people can go to see lights.
“When we were kids, we could ride around for two hours and look at Christmas lights,” he said. “Now, nobody does Christmas lights because Christmas has become so commercialized and so stressful.”
Jay said this is part of his family’s effort to keep the Christmas spirit alive.
Organized chaos
Garland along Jimmy Cook’s white picket fence set the tone for the Griswold-style light display.
Inside the fence are inflatable Santas, lighted reindeer and penguin sculptures, children’s characters, pathway lights and lights strung across shrubbery.
His house is adorned in wreaths and blue icicle lights.
“We call this organized chaos,” Jay said.
All this takes the Cookses about two to three weeks to set up. During the weeks the display is up, Jimmy said he sees hundreds and hundreds of cars come by to view the spectacle of lights.
“We just started having such a great response,” so they kept it going, Jimmy said. “It started off doing it for my grandkids, and then it just grew and grew.”
Jay said his dad always put up lights when he was a kid, but not to this extent. But when his grandchildren came along, Jimmy stepped up his game.
An inflatable, mechanical Christmas tree with Santa popping out is one of the first pieces he bought and one of the only originals he has left. He said he keeps it because his granddaughter loved it as a child.
But with all the other decorations and lights, “after they get a little old, we throw them away,” Jimmy said.
Out with the old, in with the new
Throwing out old lights doesn’t diminish the inventory Jimmy has acquired over the past 13 years he has hosted the Christmas event since he retired from his job in Thailand and moved home.
Each year, two days after Christmas, he travels to Columbus, Tupelo and Tuscaloosa to buy as many discounted Christmas lights as he can.
He said he spends between $1,000 and $2,000 each year buying new Christmas lights, which fill up over half of his 20-by-20-foot storage shed.
“We just keep adding to it each year,” he said.
And his son knows exactly where everything is so he can take over one day.
“He’ll keep it going until he can’t do it anymore. When that day comes, I’ll take over,” Jay said. “The tradition won’t end.”
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