Thomas O'Hare's Name up in Lights!
When I was born 13 years ago, my dad put up a santa and reindeer blow mould on the roof of the house. He also put up the first santa, snowman and penguin blow mould on the front wall that same year. Every year since, he has added to it and now we have around 50 blow moulds between santa, snowmen, bear and penguin plus there are around 60 rope light silhouette.
In 2006 my Granny pass away to cancer so my mum thought it would be a good idea to collect money for the Southern Area Hospice. We did this by putting a box with a light at the end of our gate and over the years we have raised over £6,000 and we are hoping to continue.
The fundraising department of the Southern Area Hospice has been very helpful over the years, by contacting the local papers and getting the newspapers to advertise the display. Many people have come to view the display and have been very generous with their donations.
The only 2 people that put up the lights are me and my dad. He refers to me as his 'little elf' as he is santa and he only need one elf. My mum decorates the inside of the house. My dad and I decorates the outside. It can be hard work but it is great fun. It take us all about 1 week to get the inside and outside decorated.
The lights are displayed from 7th December - 6th January. This year we raised one of our highest amounts. We raised over £1,100 and we are delighted. The past two years have been very frosty but this year it was a lot milder, so more people turned up to have a look at the lights.
The Christmas electric bill is between £450-£500 extra. We had an idea to try and reduce that amount, so what we did was bought low energy bulbs for all the blow moulds and we fitted them with the new bulbs.
One thing I want to make clear is that all money raised goes directly to the Southern Area Hospice and we pay the electric bill ourselves.