25,000 Lights
Plainville man’s Christmas decorations pay tribute to mother who died unexpectedly seven years ago
A Plainville man’s Christmas decorations pay tribute to his mother.
PLAINVILLE – A night glow will soon appear near Plainville’s Norton Park, a son’s sixth tribute to his mother who died unexpectedly in 2011.
21-year-old Joshua Brunelle’s display of 25,000 holiday lights will blaze for a few hours nightly at 15 Hillscrest Road until Jan. 6.
Brunelle’s mother, Jill, was 45 when she died suddenly seven years ago. He started putting up the Christmas light display the following year.
“She loved decorating for Christmas and setting up inside the house,” he said.
First he had a few lights on a backyard shed. A few years ago, he moved it into the front yard. It’s gotten bigger each year. Last year’s show had 20,000 lights and about 35 minutes of music coordinated to shifting patterns of lights.
This year’s production has 25,000 lights, nearly an hour of music that onlookers can enjoy by tuning a radio to 92.9 FM, more displays in the front yard and, for the first time, some figures that move to the music.
Brunelle has been working on the display with help from neighbor Jacob Schilling, 14. They’ve spent weeks setting up the decorations, wires and lights in the entire front yard, the entire front side of the home, the garage, up over the roofs and just about any place you could cram a light.
“It started in early September,” Brunelle said. “It’s a lot of work.”
Brunelle’s friend, Edward Sedgwick-Cochran, 26, arrived from Clearwater, Fla., on Nov. 23 to help set up the moving display and program the new car radio broadcasts. It’s all controlled and coordinated by a computer software program in a console in the house’s basement.
If it gets cold enough and hasn’t snowed, Brunelle, Sedgwick-Cochran and Schilling will try to create a light covering of snow using a snow gun they made.
Water shot through the nozzle into a fine spray should freeze into snow — at least, that’s the theory.
Sedgwick-Cochran said the hose carrying water to the nozzle will pass through ice in a large plastic tub to chill the water so it is easier to crystallize.
“We don’t know if it will work. If it does, we’re gonna put down an inch or two of snow for effect,” he said.
Schilling said he willingly pitches in because “it makes me happy for Christmas and stuff.”
In addition to brightening the street, the display also brightens the local food pantry.
Brunelle has a donation box in the front where visitors can put toys and non-perishable food. Both will go to the Plainville Community Food
Pantry.
“Last year, we collected about 130 pounds of food and a lot of toys,” he said.
Last year, he estimated that several thousand people visited the display, coming from as far away as Torrington and Bridgeport.
News stories and his own Facebook page about the display should help increase traffic this season, he said.