Macomb's annual holiday favorite … formerly known as the Chandler Park Holiday Light Show … has a new – and bigger – home this year.
For the last four years, the man behind the magical light spectacular, retired engineer Monte Colley has put his exterior illumination expertise to work to transform Macomb Chandler Park's gazebo into a holiday tour de force, complete with thousands (20,000+ to be exact) of twinkling, sparkling, blinking and flashing lights perfectly timed to holiday tunes on 89.1 FM on a car's radio dial. Because of the upcoming changes planned for Macomb's Chandler Park, to ensure the community and visitors to Macomb continue to enjoy the show without skipping a beat (or a twinkly light), he's taken the holiday extravaganza just to the north of town in the Macomb Park District's Veterans Park on University Drive. This year's light show will run 5-10 p.m. each evening Nov. 28-Jan. 1.
'We're very excited to continue a great tradition in Macomb. It has caught on downtown and we're happy to be the new host and continue this holiday tradition for the community,' said Blake Severs, executive director of the Macomb Park District. 'We have the space and the ability to host this at our property where families can drive through, park and even let their children out to play while enjoying the light show.'
Before donating his time and materials to the City of Macomb for the light show in Chandler Park, Colley used to illuminate his former Jana Road home into a wonderland that brought hundreds of vehicles to his neighborhood's cul-de-sac every year.
In addition to the 90-hours it takes to set up the lights, it takes nearly 300 hours to program the light show sequences, Colley pointed out. About nine years ago, he transformed his love for lighting up the holidays into a thriving custom-sequencing business, which includes customers from around the U.S. The Macomb High School graduate and now-retired- Western-Illinois-University engineer channeled his inner Clark Griswold about 17 years ago when he changed jobs from a control engineer to take an admin role with Western Illinois University Facilities Management.
'I still wanted to have that hands-on engineering in my life, so I started putting up lights on our house,' he recalled. 'And then, it just kept getting bigger and every year I kept adding something new or replacing old props.'
Colley provided the lights and his services at no cost to the Macomb Park District for the annual light spectacular. Several new props have been added, as well as a completely new layout designed to fit the new location at Veterans Park (just look for the lights starting Nov. 28!). In addition to some fresh props, there are five new songs added to the line-up, with 'battering Christmas tree skits.' While the entire scene looks like it might take down the city's power grid a la Clark Griswold's house illumination, Colley's entire show actually runs off of just one 15amp standard outlet, and because 90 percent of the lights are LED pixels, they take very little power to run.
Local residents who'd like a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to make this all come together are welcome to reach out to Colley at colley.christmas@gmail. com.
