Diamond Valley man lights up for the holidays as modern-day Clark Griswold

December 23, 2024 Canuck

Tyler Sand has lived in Turner Valley, now Diamond Valley for more than 15 years and, every Christmas, his home comes alive with thousands of lights strung up outside.

“Sky’s the limit,” he said.

“There’s obviously going to be a limit where I have to say enough, but we got the space, we got the place, and we got the smiles.”

Sand says he has been stringing lights from his home for years, and last year had around 230 metres worth of stringed lights. This year, he’s more than tripled that.

“I’m going to say a good guess is probably 3,000 feet,” said Sand.

He put the call out on social media this year to have those in the community with an extra set of lights, drop them off, so he could make use of them.

He’s lit up his fence along with weaving lights through the trees on his property, which he says was a challenge.

“Getting tangled up in the branches, not falling out of the tree,” he said.

“Having my wife Lisa, look out the window, worrying that I’m going to fall out of the tree.”

Lisa says her husband is always trying to outdo the previous year’s work.

“Every year he adds a little bit more,” said Lisa Sand.

“It’s always next year will be better and he kind of threw it out there to the community and the response was overwhelming.”

She says she’s proud of the work her husband has done over several hours this holiday season.

“It’s been fun and hopefully it brings some smiles to people’s faces,” said Lisa.

Sand says his idea was sparked by the 1989 Chevy Chase Christmas classic, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, where Chase’s character, Clark Griswold, added “25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights” to his home.

“Maybe a little inspiration from modern-day Clark Griswold,” said Sand.

“Kids, family, neighbours, makes everybody smile.”

He says the benefit he has over Griswold is he uses much more energy-efficient lights, compared to when the movie came out 35 years ago.

“The bulbs he used, they were old glass bulbs and they melt in the snow,” said Sand.

“If I was to put these LEDs up on my roof, the minute we got snow, you’d never see them.”

Sand says he has stopped accepting donations for this year, but if anyone does plan to drop off lights, he says he will use them next year.

“I’m tired, I’m done. I will keep them and very likely, I’ll throw them up next year,” said Sand.