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A holiday staple in Smyrna has returned this season, bringing light to the town in a rather dark year.
“Hi, guys, Merry Christmas!” Bradley Allen calls out. “Did you get candy canes?”
Allen greets the family of an Army buddy at the entrance to Christmas on Milesdale Lane. While he was deployed last year, the Allen house went dark. But now he’s back, and the lights are brighter than ever.
He walks through the music-synchronized display of 20,000 lights, beginning with a fan-favorite that sticks out a bit: a giant inflatable rubber duck wearing a Santa hat and scarf. Allen admits that when his wife, Tamara, brought the duck home in 2013, he was skeptical. But now, it wouldn’t be their display without him.
Bradley Allen The beloved inflatable duck that greets visitors at Christmas on Milesdale Lane.
“I said nobody is going to want to see a duck for Christmas. Turns out that everybody loves the duck,” Allen says. “He’s been through a lot over the last seven years with rips and tears. I’ve performed many surgeries on the duck to make sure he’s up every year.”
The family has always put up some lights, but it transformed into the synchronized display in 2014, when Allen bought a Mr. Christmas device that allowed him to plug his lights in and have them synced to the included tracks.
The Allens now begin constructing their display the week before December — admittedly later than most, but Bradley takes off work and focuses on the build for a full seven days. The light bill is also not as expensive as people assume, he says. It’s an extra $100 or so. Costs are cut by energy efficient LED lights, and blinking means less time on in the long run.
Allen’s devotion to the smallest of details on the display comes from his father, Dana. The light show began as a way for him and his three brothers — Preston, 20; Jarrod, 30; and Justin, 30 — to honor their late father after his decade-long battle with stage four colon cancer.
“Just being a caring and giving person that he was, and a happy person that he was, he found joy in the meaning of Christmas and the season,” Allen says.
He says his father started the holiday season each year by taking the family to the Salvation Army to volunteer on Thanksgiving, serving food to families in need. At home, he put holiday classics on the record player, and the boys danced around to the Beach Boys and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Allen hopes to pass his father’s Christmas spirit on to his two daughters, Riley and Harper. For now, the 9- and 5-year-old elves are in charge of handing out candy canes to visitors and reminding fellow little ones to drop their letters to Santa in the big box before they go.
The lights are on every night until 10, and an hour later on Friday and Saturday, through Jan. 1.
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