Jeremy Siegel: You're listening to GBH's Morning Edition. There are several amazing light displays around Boston to celebrate the holidays, but there is one spot in Topsfield that might literally be the best-decorated house in the country — a home drawing national attention and competing on ABC's Great Christmas Light Fight. I took a drive up there to check out this house and chat with the 21 year old behind it all. All right. I'm turning onto Henry's street right now. I see a neighbor with some pretty lights here. Oh, I'm starting to see it. Oh, my God. This is so many Christmas lights. Holy moly. I'm on Orchard Lane, where a stream of cars are lined up to check out a magical and extremely bright home at the end of a cul-de-sac. Everyone is in awe of the show, including 4-year-old Jackson Gillis. Do you want to say what you think of the lights?
Jackson Gillis: They're good.
Siegel: They're good. Have you ever seen anything like this?
Jackson Gillis: No.
Siegel: There are fields of blow-up Santas, reindeers, Christmas trees, candy canes, illuminated light tunnels, and at the center of it all, a house literally coated in strand after strand after strand of lights. Think Clark Griswold in Christmas vacation. And all of this is the brainchild of one person.
Henry Swenson: I'm Henry Swenson, and this is my house.
Siegel: Henry has been working on this, sometimes 10 hours a day, by himself since August.
Swenson: I've always wanted to go bigger with everything. And as you can see, I've definitely gotten bigger.
Siegel: How many? How many lights is this total?
Swenson: This is is a 100,000 lights with this year's display.
Visitor 1: My reaction was, Oh, my God.
Visitor 2: It's amazing. We saw something about it on the news and we have three little granddaughters. This is one of them. So we said, we got to do this. We came up the street and they said, Wow.
Visitor 3: There's a lot of lights. I'm Chris Pinette, is my wife and two sons, Grady.
Visitor 4: And we live around the corner, so we didn't have to come very far. What do you think of the lights? Are they amazing? You are star struck, you don't even know? Which was your favorite light.
Visitor 5: Um, the Christmas trees.
Swenson: Kids love it. It's incredible, like, how many kids come through here per night. I mean, it's got to be thousands. Just on the weekends, I feel like.
Siegel: What do your neighbors think of all the lights and all the cars and all the people coming through?
Swenson: I have a few neighbors that aren't too big of a fan of the traffic, which I understand, it's definitely a lot of traffic. It's crazy like, the weekdays aren't too bad but the weekends like are slammed. We have to shut the street down.
Siegel: How do you even begin to put something like this up?
Swenson: It's a lot of work, a lot of planning. You have to start early. I started Aug. 1 this year, just putting stuff out on the lawn and making sure everything is placed in a good spot. A lot of people think I'd get a notebook and like, write it all down. It's really all in my head. I just come out here and I'm like, Okay, I want this here. And if I want to move it, I can move it, but I really didn't move anything this year. And so this is a big addition from last year. I had a walk-through display last year. But all of these, vintage gingerbread men, these candy canes here, they told me that they're from the '80s, I think. They're quite old. And then this blue mega tree here, this is a new addition as well this year. This is 20 feet tall and that mega tree over there is like 10 feet tall. So it's about double the height.
Siegel: How do you get up there?
Swenson: This one was actually difficult. I had a friend help me put this one up because the metal bar that we used to put it up weighs like 70 pounds. And we had to screw it onto a base in the ground. So that was difficult. That was difficult.
Siegel: So this is all like, it's all like a home project. Like you do it yourself with the help of friends and family.
Swenson: It's really all me. Like, besides the tree here with my friend that helped me, I'm usually out here like 10 hours a day, just making sure it gets done.
Siegel: 10 hours a day?
Swenson: Yeah, 10 hours. I'm estimating I probably spent like, close to 1,000 hours putting the whole display together.
Siegel: What makes you want to be outside doing that?
Swenson: It's fun. It makes everybody happy. People love it.
Siegel: Now, if you're like me, hearing about all of these lights — tens and thousands of them lit up every night — there's probably one big question on your mind: What does an electricity bill run you for something like this?
Swenson: We have solar, so it's not as bad as a lot of people think. I think my dad said it's like a few hundred dollars. And that's not bad considering the amount of lights.
Siegel: And even with that price tag, Henry does not charge for people to view the lights. It's all free. And he's actually raised $15,000 for Boston Children's Hospital. So on this cul de sac north of Boston, you don't exactly have to worry about being naughty or nice and whether Santa is coming to town. With Henry's light show, it's kind of like he's already here for. In Topsfield, I'm Jeremy Siegel and you're listening to GBH News.
There are several amazing light displays around Boston to celebrate the holidays, but there is one spot in Topsfield that might literally be the best-decorated house in the country — a home which has drawn national attention participating in ABC's "Great Christmas Light Fight."
At 18 Orchard Lane in Topsfield, a stream of cars lined up to check out a magical and extremely bright home at the end of a cul-de-sac. Everyone was in awe of the show, including 4-year-old Jackson Gillis.
“They're good,” he said. Has he ever seen anything like it? “No.”
There are fields of blow-up Santas, reindeer, Christmas trees, candy canes, illuminated light tunnels — and at the center of it all, a house literally coated in strand after strand after strand of lights. Think Clark Griswold in "Christmas Vacation." And all of this is the brainchild of one person: 21-year-old Henry Swenson.
Swenson has been working on this, sometimes 10 hours a day, by himself since August.
“I've always wanted to go bigger with everything. And as you can see, I've definitely gotten bigger,” he said.
There are about 100,000 lights in this year’s display, he said.
“Kids love it,” he said. “It's incredible, like, how many kids come through here per night. I mean, it's got to be thousands. Just on the weekends, I feel like.”
Some neighbors come, he said — and he tries to be mindful of those who don’t love the traffic the display brings to their street.
“It's definitely a lot of traffic,” Swenson said. “The weekdays aren't too bad but the weekends like are slammed. We have to shut the street down.”
Putting it together took a lot of work, he said. He started Aug. 1, sometimes working 10 hours a day to place lights around the lawn, usually by himself.
“A lot of people think I'd get a notebook and like, write it all down. It's really all in my head,” Swenson said. “I just come out here and I'm like, OK, I want this here. And if I want to move it, I can move it, but I really didn't move anything this year.”
Some of the lights are older, he said, like a collection of vintage gingerbread men he was told were from the 1980s.
There’s also a tree made up of a 70-pound pole with blue lights hanging off of it. A friend helped him install that pole, he said.
“It's fun. It makes everybody happy. People love it,” he said.
Hearing about all of these lights — tens and thousands of them lit up every night — usually raises one big question: What does an electricity bill run you for something like this?
“We have solar, so it's not as bad as a lot of people think,” Swenson said. “I think my dad said it's like a few hundred dollars. And that's not bad considering the amount of lights.”
And even with that price tag, Swenson does not charge for people to view the lights. It’s all free, though he is collecting money for Boston Children’s Hospital. And he's raised $15,000 so far, he said.
So on this cul-de-sac north of Boston, you don't exactly have to worry about being naughty or nice and whether Santa is coming to town. With Swenson’s light show, it's kind of like he's already here.
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