Homes All Aglow Annual Family Competition Leads To 36,000 Lights On Two Yakima Homes

A spirited game of one-upmanship is playing out this holiday season between a father and his daughter and son-in-law over who has the best Christmas display.

Lou Hurst, 63, appears to have enough lights to illuminate Manhattan. More than 20,000 lights line the roof, drape from the trees and crisscross the bushes. Each December the electrical bill jumps by up to $50.

No less impressive are the lights at the home of Vickie and Tim Reed, where greens cover the yard, reds and whites line the fence, driveway and house, and icicle lights hang over the front door.

Reed, 31, a pipe layer, started the game when he hung lights in 1994. The next year, he invited his father-in-law to do the same.

“They started putting lights up, and we started putting up a few, and here we are,” Hurst said.

In three years, the Reeds have tripled their number, now boasting more than 16,000 lights. But they couldn’t outpace Hurst, who, thanks to retirement, had more money to spend and more time to shop.

“We always used to say we’re brighter,” Vickie Reed said. “But his extra 5,000 or 6,000 has gotten his (yard) brightest.”

The competition is diversifying. Both houses showcase multiple Santa and reindeer displays, as well as oversized candles and snowmen. And when Hurst heard that his son-in-law was dressing up as Santa this year, he hopped in his car and hunted down his own red suit, settling only after he found a similarly plush outfit in Sunnyside.

At the Reed home, passers-by hear traditional Christmas carols. At the Hurst home, it’s Elvis crooning, “Here Comes Santa Claus.”

The Reeds even decorated their basketball hoop. Their finishing touch is a “Suspended Santa,” strung on a cable over the front yard and leading Dasher, Dancer and the rest of the reindeer over the top of the house.

But the Reeds say Hurst aced them out when he spent almost $400 on a life-sized animated Santa, who shifts from side to side under the driveway carport.

“That was the only one in town,” said a Claus-costumed Hurst. “Vickie said, ‘Did you get that at Sears? That was supposed to be in my yard.’ I said, ‘You were running a little late, weren’t you?”’

The holiday light fight leaves neighbors and passing motorists beaming brightly.

Next door to the Hursts, the Tormaschy house is lined with only two rows of lights. Such moderation puts Robert Tormaschy on the receiving end of his pals’ barbs, but neither he nor his wife, Karen, care.

“I think it’s great,” Karen Tormaschy said. “It’s done real tastefully.”

Hurst and his son-in-law shop the Christmas-light sales together, and when motorists stop by either house, the Santa there directs them to the other one as well.

“We’re real good that way,” Hurst said. “They’re goodhearted kids. They just enjoy doing this stuff.”

Plans are already under way for next year’s extravaganza.

This summer, perhaps with help from his son-in-law, Hurst will plant six more weatherproof electrical boxes to go with the seven already sprouting like mushrooms throughout the front yard.

The talk at the Reed home is of snow machines. And maybe, Reed said, he could wire up not just a suspended Santa, but a mobile suspended Santa on a pulley system.