Anne Simmons
Delivering a winning entry in the Light up Latrobe competition, for one Yinnar man, is much more than setting up and packing down boxes of cables and globes.
Every night Shane Lambert will spend an hour pumping up the inflatable additions to his Christmas display and stacking them up.
About 1am when all the spectators have gone to bed, he takes them inside again out of the weather.
“I’m still a big kid I think. I just like bright lights,” Mr Lambert said.
The Yinnar resident has won the best display in his town three times in the seven or eight years he has been involved.
A Santa Claus drinking lemonade under a palm tree and an eight-foot Santa on a surfboard are just some of the nightly visitors to his house come Christmas time.
Mr Lambert spends about two weeks dragging the paraphernalia out of the shed, then he is at the mercy of the weather as to how long it takes to finalise his display.
He said once he was up a ladder when it was nearly 40 degrees hanging up lights, and other times a storm has rolled in “at the most opportune time”.
“My partner Cheryl, she enjoys it … she does a bit of supervising for me,” Mr Lambert said.
“I’ve got two boys who are 18 [Lachlan] and 22 [Jesse] now. I try and get them to help me; sometimes yes, sometimes no, but they enjoy it too.”
Then at the end of the season, it all goes away.
“That’s the big thing, taking them back down again,” he said.
“As long as the lid closes, I’m happy”.
Register your home for Light up Latrobe by December 6. Find the registration form in the Express.
You can simply register the location of your display to be printed in the paper. Additionally, you can enter the Christmas lights competition.
Judging will be December 8 to 10, then winners will be published in the Express on December 17.
