Tens of thousands of residents are illuminating the Sunshine Coast for the festive season, adorning their homes with a kaleidoscope of colour and character.
Among those to get into the spirit are Graham and Judy Lumley, with their annual Christmas Wonderland display near Montville.
They have welcomed droves of visitors to their property during the past seven years, with an amazing exhibition in a shed.
They boast the largest scale-model Christmas village in the southern hemisphere and a walk-through indoor garden boasting more than 150,000 lights.
“The village has a Christmas carnival with rollercoasters and rides and more, and then we have the garden display with lit-up trees,” Mr Lumley said.
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The free display was opened on December 16-17, with allocations of the tickets exhausted well beforehand. About 600 people wandered through during that weekend.
The display was opened amid very little fanfare in 2017, after the couple moved to the range from Brisbane.
“No one turned up on the first day,” Mr Lumley said.
“We didn’t advertise and we were just getting our feet on the ground.
“A couple of hundred people ended up going through leading into Christmas.”
Hordes of people attended the following year.
“We didn’t sell tickets and we probably had 10,000 people turn up in December,” he said.
“At one point, 850 people turned up in a three-hour period.
“That’s when (Sunshine Coast) Council stepped in.”
The attraction now operates as a temporary event with limited access, mainly due to its location on a rural, private property.
Mr Lumley said the couple’s passion for Christmas lights was forged in the 1990s “when our kids (triplets) were fairly little”.
“We started with a couple of strings out the front, to make it a bit more festive,” he said.
“But then it just got completely out of control, to the point where I was dealing with overseas companies and getting lights custom made.
“When we went overseas, we would visit Christmas lights manufacturers and shops and try to find something different – we have stuff in our display that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.”
They were adjudged runners-up in a prominent competition for Christmas lights in southern Brisbane in 2015.
“We had about 250,000 lights around the house, so it was pretty intense. We spent a lot of time and effort on it,” he said.
The kids grew up and went their own way but Graham and Judy have continued the tradition.
When they moved to the Sunshine Coast in 2017, they put all their lights in a shipping container and relocated them to their property on the range.
But Mr Lumley is not sure how much longer they will continue to exhibit the wonderland showcase.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to money and we’re getting to the stage where I’m not earning the money I used to and we’re trying to wind down,” he said.
“We don’t spend much now, particularly after council cut us right back in terms of how much we can open.
“So we’re just going to take it a year at a time.”
There are several mass lights displays and events in the region, like The Festive Garden, Christmas at Lifepointe Baptist Church and the Mooloolaba Christmas Boat Parade.
Residents in towns and suburbs have also got into the Christmas spirit. You can see a list of some of them via Sunshine Coast Christmas Lights Guide.
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