SHINING BRIGHTLY
The Biblical truth that it’s more of a blessing to give than to receive is alive and well every day for Michelle and Scott Mace, but especially at this time of year.
They’re the folks who live in — and decorate for Christmas — the house on U.S. Hwy. 64 about halfway between Pittsboro and Siler City featuring more than 50,000 lights and, when the sun goes down, a heavy stream of onlookers.
And not just their house, but also their yard and their nearby barn, the lights of which cast a reflection in the pond fronting it.
The Maces do it in order to help make the holidays bright, in every sense of the word.
“We do this to bring smiles and joy to people going by,” Michelle Mace says of the lights — and all the work done in preparation — which make up the displays. “I think last year there were 56,000 lights; we stopped counting after 50,000. And we don’t put up all the lights we have. Some are for spares.”
And it doesn’t happen overnight, of course. It’s taken the Maces years to develop a plan for the display and it takes days to put together each year.
A Thanksgiving target
“We bought the house in the early 2000s and started with the lights around ’03,” she says.
When it’s time to start decorating — usually around Nov. 1 — displays are set up in sections. They include large figurines and metal trees, some of which are homemade. Lights are everywhere, hoisted by hand or placed in the upper reaches with tools like landscaping slingshots; large snowflakes on the house are actually magnets that stick to the metal roof.
The goal is to have the display completed by the day after Thanksgiving.
“We’ll usually have 85% of them ready by then,” Scott says, “depending on the weather.”
With all those lights glowing for two months or so, it might seem to be a financial drain on the family utility bill. But Scott says it’s not.
“Most of the bulbs are LEDs,” he says, “and not incandescent, so they use less electricity. It costs around $300 a month for them, and that’s a small price to pay for the pleasure.”
And pleasure is what Scott and Michelle get out of their collective efforts.
“It seemed to me when we started that fewer and fewer people were just riding around seeing lights,” he said. “So we just started putting some up and each year just added more and more.”
It’s a team effort, but Scott credits Michelle with carrying the bulk of the load.
“We really enjoy doing this,” Michelle says.
For a number of years, Michelle’s mother Glenda Johnson, who lived with the couple, was a big part of the activities.
“She would visit with people who came, sharing memories and cookies,” Michelle says. “Last year was our first year without Mama; it was hard. We had children come and we showed them around. I needed that.”
No parking, though
The growing popularity of the displays has meant more and more traffic. And that has created a situation the Maces want people to be aware of: there’s no parking for visitors hoping to get an up-close look at the lights.
“We don’t have parking for people who want to stop,” Michelle says. “And we can’t have people park in the gravel driveway up to the barn because our neighbors behind it have got to be able to get to their property.”
In an effort to get a longer, closer look, some passersby have taken to simply stopping along the highway. As a result, there have been accidents. So far, there haven’t been injuries, but the Maces worry there could be — that, or worse.
Pulling onto the shoulder of the highway can be OK, but to Michelle’s dismay, some actually stop their cars on the highway.
“There was an accident the Monday after Thanksgiving,” Michelle says. “And once we had several cars just stop in the road and the people in them get out and walk across the road and onto our property. I told them to get back in their cars or I would turn off the lights. Law enforcement tells us not to stop what we’re doing, that we’re not to blame. And we’ve put up ‘No Trespassing’ signs, and I hate to do that, but it’s frustrating when there are wrecks.”
In an effort to draw attention to the traffic the lights help create, illuminated digital signs are placed along the highway shoulder urging motorists to reduce their speed near the house, located at 8311 U.S. 64 West, not far east of Bowers Store Road and Pleasant Hill Church Road.
“We don’t really encourage people to get out and walk around because of the number of power cords and uneven terrain,” Michelle says. “There are also some places where there’s some high voltage and we don’t want anyone to get tangled up in drop cords and fall or disconnect the lights.”
The home’s displays are lighted until New Year’s Day. After that, Michelle and Scott start taking them down in sections and storing them until the next year.
“We’ll take some down and then light what’s left,” Scott says. “The next day we’ll take some more down and light what’s left and keep going until they’re all down. We don’t want to turn them all off at the same time.”
While the lights are meant to bring joy to all ages, Michelle admits there are two groups in which she has special interest — children and older adults.
“The kids are often just awed by it all,” she says, adding there are sometimes similar reactions from older adults. “I remember the time a man who was 90, if he was a day, pulled up — and the look of wonderment on his face was something to see.”
Truck drivers also react, she says,
“It’s nothing to hear a truck going by at 3 in the morning blowing his horn coming down the road. And once, an over-the-road family — husband, wife and year-old child — from Texas stopped and stayed for half an hour. They said it really meant so much to them.”
While many face-to-face encounters with onlookers result from the display, there are also hand-written thanks. Recently, Scott and Michelle received a card from a commuter who told them she passed by twice a day in the darkness — in the morning on her way to her work and in the late afternoon on her way home. The traveler wrote to the Maces that the lights “make my heart happy and bring a smile to my face. Thank you for bringing happiness, peace and joy to your part of this wonderful world. We need more people like you. The world would be much better off.”
Michelle says, “I needed that after the wreck. I know I’m a softie at heart.”
So while there’s giving and receiving, blessings and being blessed because of the displays, Scott and Michelle believe there’s also a deeper meaning.
“If you think about it,” Scott says, “most religions involve light in their beliefs. Take the Chinese lantern festivals, for instance. For Christians, Christmas takes note of Jesus as the light of the world.”
And in a nod to Christmas, Michelle’s mother, Glenda, more than once noted that sometimes people who were depressed or sad would stop by and say the displays “made Christmas” for them.
“Holidays can be hard,” Michelle quoted her mom as saying. “But they shouldn’t be. We’re celebrating the greatest miracle ever.”