The Men Behind The Lights

“After Halloween is too early!”

“What about Thanksgiving? How can you skip over that holiday?”

“But I want to enjoy my decorations as long as possible – it’s my favorite time of year.”

Every year, debates among friends, family and across social media take place regarding the appropriate time to debut Santa, his reindeer and other Christmas décor. Some people don’t have a choice when they start the decorating process. For some people, decorating early is a must to guarantee Christmas cheer for all to enjoy.

Take Dallas Wright and David Pettit, both Saline County equipment operators, for example. Starting after the Labor Day holiday, Christmas decorating becomes their life. In early September, they begin planning and executing Celebration of Lights – the annual courthouse holiday extravaganza. As part of the state’s Trail of Holiday Lights, the Saline County display features thousands of lights strung on the historic structure and many Christmas-themed vignettes adorning the lawn. The men are excited about some new looks for the lawn, which are being kept secret until the lights are turned on the week of Thanksgiving.

Celebration of Lights has lit up Saline County for nearly 15 years, and Dallas has been in charge of stringing the lights for six. “It started as a volunteer thing at work,” he says. “It sounded like a lot of fun and it has become more and more fun each year.” David has been working alongside Dallas for five years. They each grew up participating in holiday decorating – Dallas helping his father string lights on their house and David helping his mom put up the tree and decorations around the house – and agree that although it’s a lot of hard work, the cheer they help bring to children and families each year makes it all worthwhile.

After coming back to work from Labor Day weekend, Dallas and David do a Celebration of Lights inventory and put together an order of items they’ll need for the year’s event. “If the weather is nice we start on the courthouse shortly after that to make sure everything is done by the Arkansas Trail of Holiday Lights deadline date, which is the Monday before Thanksgiving,” Dallas says.

Stringing lights on the courthouse takes about a month to complete and longer if there aren’t enough dry weather days. The courthouse building usually has about 30,000 lights, Dallas says. After Halloween, he and David start on the courthouse lawn. “It takes every minute of every day up to the deadline date to get the yard ready with the lights and decorations,” Dallas notes. About 100,000 lights adorn the lawn and trees, he says. “We always look to where we can add more and more lights and this year is the year that more have been added.”

At home, Dallas and David don’t have quite the same level of festivities going on, but they definitely get in the spirit as they both take pride in celebrating Christmas for its true meaning. “I dream of the day when I’m able to go Clark Griswold style like in the movie, Christmas Vacation,” says Dallas, husband and father of two small children. “But for now, I’m happy with lights on my house and our small display of lighted trees in the yard.”

Celebration of Lights is made possible each year strictly from donations from local businesses and elected officials. “This year we have been very blessed with contributions, which has enabled us to bring new things to the display,” Dallas says. “First, we were able to change the lights on the building to LED to cut down on energy and also make it brighter. We also have been able to add a few new ‘secret’ items to the yard, which we have been working on very hard to make sure is awesome. But we are only two guys in the group of hard workers at the courthouse that help make all this happen so we would like to say a very big ‘thank you’ to them.”

Hanging lights from the top of the courthouse at 130 feet has to be the most challenging aspect about the job, Dallas says. “But hey, on a pretty clear-sky day it is a breathtaking view of the whole county.” The men agree that it’s all worth it because of the kids. “You truly do not know how good it makes us both feel when we see smiles on kids’ faces over as simple of a thing as Christmas lights,” Dallas adds. When a lighted winter wonderland is reflected in the eyes of a child, those petty it’s-too-early-to-decorate debates are long forgotten as that special holiday feeling takes hold.