3, 2, 1!
Light it up!
Narrator: Santa's made his list and checked it twice...
I'm right at the top. Hey! Go figure.
...rounding up displays that are nice...
Woman: Unbelievable Ferris wheel.
...as families rock the brightest designs...
This is your Christmas light version of a rock concert.
...and judge Taniya Nayak...
This is a legit holiday red carpet moment.
...awards another $50,000 prize.
Look at my smile!
So run and tell all your deer friends...
Whooooo!
...because "The Great Christmas Light Fight"...
Man: The show is out of this world.
...is on!
Um, excuse me, I'm just gonna have a little moment to myself.
Let us know when you're ready.
-- Captions by VITAC --
♪♪
Let's dance!
Both: We're the Irvins!
Welcome to Christmas in the country.
Whoo!
Sally: Our Christmas display is what I would call a lot,
But I don't mean a lot in a bad way.
I mean a lot in a great way.
I'm loving the electrical, babe. I'm loving the electrical.
We have so much fun putting this up.
Bring on the juice.
Gives us our world here at Christmastime.
We love to do it together. That's what makes it so special.
We're going to make another Christmas ball.
Another Christmas ball?
We have to have some more in the trees. Oh, okay.
First of all, I'm the decorator.
I've got to have it just right.
You're the boss. I'm the laborer.
This is why I let you know what we need to do.
She usually comes to me and says,
"I would like to have this.
Can you build it for me?"
I say, "Yes."
I'm here to please. [ Laughs ]
So you keep me around. And I love you for it.
We have a small farm here.
And anything we need new for the Christmas show,
we can just go out back in the pasture or in the shop,
and we can build anything we want.
The hanging balls are made out of the chicken wire.
We have a homemade bow
which is made out of just fencing material.
The homemade stars on top of the roof are made out of rebar.
The rebar can make it straight.
You can make it curve.
You can do whatever you want to with it.
Rebar, rebar, rebar. Rebar, yeah.
Paint and glitter. Exactly.
[ Both laugh ]
Let's go get welding. Alright.
We put so much heart into this.
There you go. Perfect.
To have Taniya come to this display
to see everything we have done
is basically a dream come true for us.
♪♪
Hey, Taniya's coming!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Hey, hey, hi! Merry Christmas!
Hey!
Wow! This is quite the welcome!
My goodness!
I am Sally Irvin. This is my husband, Kenny Irvin.
Taniya: What got you started in all of this?
She got me into it
'cause I wasn't too excited about putting
Christmas lights up. At all.
At all? At all, Taniya.
Go figure, yet here you are
on "The Great Christmas Light Fight."
You must have some magic powers, girlfriend.
I try, I try! She has got the magic powers!
[ Laughter ]
So what can I expect tonight?
Country, lots of lovely lights.
Ooh! And lots of excitement and fun.
Hey, alright! I like it, yeah.
So, Texas, you know, they have cornhole.
So we improvised a little bit
and made the hole a little bit bigger.
Okay. [ Laughter ]
So we're going to going to see if you can put four balls...
Four?! ...in four holes to get the lights to come on.
Yes. How much time do you guys all have?
I know it's gonna be a while.
Yeah!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Taniya: Alright, here we go.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Yes! Very good! -You guys are so good for me.
Oh, I love it. Love it. Alright.
Alright. Next basket. Here we go.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Oh! Whoa!
That was just kidding. Whoa, lady, go again.
Just kidding. How about this? There you go.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Doing good.
[ Cheers and applause continue ]
One more. One more. Obviously...
I'm gonna sink this shot!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Alright, let's count it down.
3, 2, 1!
[ Cheers and applause ]
That was so great!
Oh, my gosh!
Whoo!
Look at all of the lights!
It's so colorful.
I see giant inflatables, giant reindeer,
massive snowmen arch! What?!
I'm seeing trees, trees, trees, and more trees!
I know, right? So many trees! It's beautiful!
Your entire house covered in lights.
I love this pole with the wreath right at the top.
This is amazing.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Very, very cool.
Can we go take a look?
Yeah, alright! Let's go!
[ Cheers, applause, whistling ]
Whoo! ♪ We wish you a country Christmas ♪
♪ We wish you a country Christmas and a Happy New Year ♪
♪♪
This is so fun.
The whole snowman arch is definitely a first.
It takes you all the way down this path.
This is a legit holiday red carpet moment.
How long is this?
Every section is 10 foot long.
Almost 100 feet long. So it's PVC pipe
and it's rebar stakes in there to hold it. Holding it down.
They slide over and it goes up,
and then we screw it with a cross.
Well, I'm really impressed with
how nice it goes straight all the way down without snagging.
And these trees, they're so cute.
I'm like an official Christmas tree hugger.
And I love the lights,
the way they're perfectly lined up.
And we have a homemade bow
that is made out of fencing material.
Right.
We got a little piece of fence just to show you.
This is what you use to actually make a bow?
Kenny: Because it rolls up nice and easy.
You can roll it and wrap the lights
and it holds its position. Taniya: Genius.
Sally: Kenneth made those stars up there
and they're made out of rebar.
It is one 20-foot piece, and then I heat it up and bend it.
Taniya: I can barely hand draw a perfect star.
Yet you managed to bend rebar.
That's incredible.
♪♪
I wanted to show you these here.
Taniya: Oh, yeah. We call these the Kenny Canes.
So these are a piece of rebar.
Stop it right now. Yes.
Who has ever put glitter on rebar before? [ Laughter ]
Kenny: They're easy to make, but if you have an anvil,
it's easier to to hit them, to bend them,
to get the curvature that you need.
So an anvil, basically, it helps you bend the rebar.
It's sit on a stand and you can pound on it.
And you put glitter on them.
Yeah, I know. [ Laughter ]
Kenny, you have quite literally raised the rebar on love.
It's amazing. I love it.
Look how tall this is!
♪♪
Taniya: Now, this is a cool mega tree,
and it's wrapped so tightly with lights.
There's like close to 15,000 lights.
On this tree. On this one tree.
Yes. It was a basketball goal for the base.
We extended it up.
I welded a two-inch flange on the top
and then welded washers on the rebar at an angle,
so the rebars would come out.
You have a very tight relationship with rebar.
I think it's only fitting
that we talk about the great big reindeer in the room.
[ Laughter ]
How tall is this? Kenny: This guy is 27 foot tall.
You have this giant reindeer.
You have giant soldiers.
Santa is hanging out in your yard.
It's great. You have so many great inflatables.
This is the most important one, though, I think.
Everybody's always running through their legs.
Come on, we're going to run through the legs.
Let's go, let's go. We gotta do it.
We can be little kids. Yep.
1, 2, 3. Let's go!
Whooooooo!
Let's go see some more. Alright.
We have some more exciting stuff to show ya.
Giddyup! Let's go.
Taniya, around this corner,
we have something very exciting. A surprise!
Surprise! Surprise!
You guys ready for a surprise?
[ Cheering ]
This is a carnival! It's an actual carnival!
You guys ready for a surprise?
[ Cheering ]
Let the good times roll!
Yeah! That's so cool! This is a carnival.
It's an actual carnival. This is amazing.
Alright. I'm ready to play some games.
Sally: I know. Kenny: Alright.
You can have a cookie, a candy cane.
Taniya: Oh!
Throw good.
Yeah! Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
You did it! Who wants to go up against me?
Whoa! Did you see that, you guys? Nice job.
I can see why everybody loves this so much.
It's so fun and interactive.
Everyone's having a great time. Do you change it up every year?
We usually try to add something.
This year, it was the Ferris wheel.
I mean, this is unbelievable. It took us about a month.
Oh, wow. A month to do it? To working at night.
So you just made it from scratch?
It's all made out of one-inch angle iron.
It weighs about 500 pounds, but it comes apart in pieces.
There's eight seats on it, and then the seat comes off.
Comes off. But you made every piece of this?
Every piece.
Wow. Every piece.
Yeah. This is a bicycle wheel
that we had to use for the pulley.
Turn the red switch.
Taniya: Wow, look at this thing.
Isn't it great? Right. It goes fast.
So smooth.
This is awesome.
And I love the way you decorated
with lights and greenery and elves.
It's next level.
Kenny and Sally are a dream duo.
They laugh, they have fun, but most of all,
they know how to throw down a Christmas display.
You guys are the best. How much fun did we have?
This was amazing.
It's magnificent.
You had inflatables just larger than life.
I thought it was so fun
how you guys made so much of what's on your display
with the rebar and then the rebar and then the rebar.
I love how creative you guys got
with that unbelievable Ferris wheel.
That love certainly shows in what you do for people
with your display.
The expression and the joy and the happiness on their face,
that's what makes this all worth it.
This is what we do.
Alright, well, before I get going,
can I get a great big, giant inflatable sized hug?
Oh, it was so much fun.
Thank you so much. Thank you!
Alright, merry Christmas. Both: Merry Christmas!
That was great. Unbelievable.
Rebar, rebar, rebar. She loved it. Rebar, rebar, rebar.
♪♪
All: We're the Lunar family!
And our synchronized pixel light show...
Will eclipse the competition.
I love it. That looks so good.
Lunar family lights,
it's a synchronized pixel light show with
over 120,000 individual pixels placed throughout the display.
With the L.E.D. panels, you add those in,
we're over 1.3 million channels of light,
just like somebody flicking a light switch every second.
His birthday present to himself
is putting up Christmas lights in the summer.
It's pretty crazy. But hey, you know, why not?
Hey, can you grab me that PVC?
Candice: Basically, I'm the support team.
Whatever Brad needs help with,
I'm happy to do it.
And I can use a power tool.
And I'm pretty good with my hands.
She's the zip-tie queen.
Don't let her fool you.
Out of the 250 sequences,
these are the ones that we're going to run.
I do all the programming.
You got to tell the program exactly
where every single light is in relation to the prop.
DIY-wise, I have the frame for our huge 17 1/2-foot flake.
I cemented that in the ground.
We got some 3-D-printed mounts.
He is willing to 3-D-print his own stuff
and I think that's really cool.
I got at least 120 or 130 more of these to print.
They take about an hour and a half each.
I realize that's a lot of time.
Candice: His attention to detail is unreal.
He has such a love for not only the lights,
but also the process of doing it that it's mind-blowing.
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Let's go! Alright! Taniya's coming!
[ Cheers and applause continue ]
Hi! Hi, everybody! Hi!
It's so nice to see you guys.
Well, I'm Taniya.
Taniya, we're the Lunars.
This is my beautiful mother, Nora.
-Hi. -Hi.
This is my wife, Candice.
This is my youngest daughter, Kylie.
Hi. And my oldest daughter, Shannan.
And we want to welcome you out to our animated
synchronized light show.
Okay. Only 120,000 pixels.
Is that it? And, you know, about 1.3, 1.4 million channels.
Don't give me too much information.
This show is out of this world.
Whoo! I like that, especially since your last name is Lunar.
We were born for this. Yes, you were born for this.
I love all the puns, by the way.
[ Laughter ] I'm a total pun girl, so...
But it's missing one light. One?
And we need you to help us with that.
Okay. We're gonna take this candle,
and we're going to go ahead
and have you walk up to the gingerbread family spinner
on the table over there, set it in the middle,
and that's going to start the magic.
Thank you. Okay. Who's ready?
[ Cheers and applause ] Let's go!
Alright, let's count it down in...
All: 3, 2, 1!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Alright, it's going, it's going.
And boom!
This is beautiful.
3, 2, 1!
[ Cheers and applause ]
It's going, it's going, it's going.
And boom!
Wow!
This is beautiful.
♪ Joy to the world ♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
♪ Joy to the world ♪
♪ Joy to the world, the Lord Is come ♪
♪ Let Earth receive her king ♪ Oh, my goodness!
♪ Let every heart prepare him room ♪ This is incredible!
I love how you use this color here.
The palette is just stunning.
♪ And heaven and heaven and nature sing ♪
That's so great. And look at this.
You have candy canes. You have arches.
You have so many snowflakes covering the house.
I see your mini pixels on the grass
just growing right out of the ground.
Even the driveway is dancing and moving
and spinning. That giant snowflake.
♪♪
♪ Joy to the world ♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Yes! Great job!
That was awesome!
I say we go take a look. You want to take a look? Yes, I do.
Can we bring them with us? I would love that.
Come on, guys! [ Cheers and applause ]
Woman: This display is amazing.
It's a candy cane.
Look at all of this. These arches are so amazing.
It's just layers and layers and layers.
But yes, this candy cane is pretty much my height.
These are big. You have so many of them.
Brad: Oh, yeah. There's 18. There's nine on each side.
I use half-inch mesh.
Every single one of these rows we mapped out inch by inch.
You are meticulous.
We put some PVC on the back, two stacks of rebar,
and we pound them three feet down
and we put them in real good. And then... That's so cool.
And then you just slide them down.
It's magic. It's that simple. Genius.
I promise you've never seen these before.
These are three-foot-tall blow mold.
So we love taking things that didn't have animated lighting
and giving it new life.
Take the bulbs out. Oh!
Once again, using my good friend PVCs and zip ties.
Yes. Every single zip tie is cut.
We don't leave the tails.
Meticulous precision right there.
So you just put them right back on.
Just like every light bulb.
Perfect. And that answers the question
how many people does it take to change a light bulb?
[ Laughter ]
So, we have our joy sign.
It's the first prop I did with pixels.
Do you want to see the magic in the back?
I really do, actually. Awesome.
I love that stuff. Watch your step.
Yeah. So I just kind of winged this
'cause I don't have these skills,
but you just kind of, like, dream it up.
All this we learned from videos.
Videos? A lot of trial and error.
If you don't sleep, the things you can achieve in life
when you use that other half of the day.
Who needs sleep?
-Coming over here... -Okay.
So, I lucked out and got some of this framing
and added garden stakes to them.
Taniya: Oh! And every arm had to have the exact same amount
of lights for it to work.
Now, that's so cool. I love that you got creative.
The garden stakes really gives this,
like, sparkly rays of sunshine coming out of here,
so that was very clever.
So, we have the framing and a million zip ties.
Then we did 130 pounds of concrete in each of these.
We're using 18-inch spikes in the ground,
ratchet straps, guide wires.
And if you notice, this thing barely moves.
Yeah. Last week we just had 60-mile-per-hour winds.
And this is still standing. It didn't budge.
It didn't go anywhere.
You could probably hang off that thing and it would be fine.
Don't tempt me with a good time,
because I will, I will.
♪♪
I want to show you one of our seven pixel forests.
Through the beauty of technology,
with some servos, we can actually animate this,
have it sing and dance with the music.
Do you figure out how to make this whole thing?
I had to figure out how to put it together
and make it work and run the programming.
It definitely leaves not a bald spot on the lawn.
And if you keep looking up,
I call it the Mega Flake because the 7 1/2-foot flake
that used to be up there just wasn't big enough.
It has to go to the moon! Hey!
I like the snowflake.
That's a big one!
I actually have a 17 1/2-foot-tall snowflake.
Taniya: What?! There's 4,500 lights in here.
Wow. I got a whole trussing system that,
you know, you'd see at a rock concert.
4x4-inch beams in here concreted into the ground 40 inches.
I mean, it looks awesome, but it's so worth it,
because when you stand on the street
and you look at it, it's a wow. So if this wasn't enough,
one of the first showpieces we ever did was these arches.
4,800 lights, added another 2,256 in the driveway
and staggered it level per level per level,
like it's going up into the matrix.
If we need to at nighttime,
what we do is we can easily pop these off. Ah!
So that way we can drive through. Oh, yeah.
Well, I love the dynamics of everything.
It's very cool.
Whoa. This is so pretty.
Alright, Taniya, I want to show you something
that we only show to our closest family and friends.
Taniya: This is cute.
So my stepdad, George, made this 20-some years ago
for all the kids and the grandkids.
That's so nice. He handcrafted a lot of stuff.
And of course we had to add some lights to it
to give it our own little flair.
Unfortunately, he passed away two years ago. I'm sorry.
Um, he inspired me to do a display, and it was tough.
It was tough.
But, um, I know he's looking down
because you could see it from there.
Yes, yes, because you can. Right. Candice: [ Laughs ]
The fact that you have this is super meaningful,
and it really ties back to what the holiday season is all about.
It's about family, as you guys are very big on.
I'd love to show you the inside.
I would love to see.
If you want to go ahead and open the door.
Okay.
Oh, look at this! That is so sweet!
Can I go in? Absolutely. You could stand up in there.
Oh, no way. Yeah, I can. You're right.
[ Laughter ]
Oh, this is so amazing.
There's some milk and cookies there for you.
Oh, yes!
So, Taniya, so, speaking of Brad's stepdad,
this is a portrait.
He looks like Santa. Doesn't he?
Yes. I thought that was Santa. Yep.
I love it. Do you also smell in there?
Yes. It smells like gingerbread house.
Gingerbread house. This is awesome.
I'm gonna finish my cookie.
Excuse me. I'm just gonna have a little moment to myself.
Let us know when you're ready.
Mmm, mmm-mmm-mmm!
[ Electricity crackles, bells jingle ]
Brad: Alright, Taniya, I wanted to show you something
that's super special to us.
Look at this. You guys, this is amazing.
Oh, you guys, I love this.
Yeah, these are all made by my stepfather.
Oh, my gosh, you guys!
And we've been taking the last couple years and hand
painting all of these.
You know what? When you look at them up close,
they're like puzzles that are put together.
Candice: Exactly. Correct.
Which is incredible. Yes.
They're all little itsy bitsy pieces
that were all hand-cut and jigsawed.
Look at all the detail.
Oh, I know George did not put my name on that list.
No. [ Laughter ]
No, but now that you're part of the family,
we had to put you on the nice list.
And I'm right at the top. Hey! That's right.
Go figure.
The Lunar family has a special family dynamic.
You can just tell being around them.
I see that coming through in their display.
It had a little bit of everything.
We had a light show, we had nostalgia,
we had a gingerbread house.
What else could you ask for?
That was so amazing!
Just from the moment I walked up,
I felt goose bumps, and it just got better and bigger.
I absolutely love the DIY,
but the part that really got me the most was the sentiment
and the fact that a lot of the influence
is coming from your stepdad, and I felt it.
-Thank you so much. -Thank you.
We appreciate it. We're so glad to share this with you.
I will tell you you're leaving me
with a big smile on my face.
I do have to get going. Can I have one?
-Yeah, bring it in. -She's part of the family now.
-Thank you. -Thank you so much.
Welcome to the family.
-Welcome. -Welcome to the Lunars.
-Yes. -Thanks for having me.
-See ya later. -Bye!
-Merry Christmas! -I don't know, guys.
-I think we had a winner. -I think so too.
Brad: All the way to the moon, you might say.
[ Family groaning ]
Nobody's as Lunar-tic as us.
[ Laughter ]
♪♪
We're the Kopatz family.
And when it comes to Christmas lights,
we're always on the nice list.
Let's just outline it all the way around.
Yeah. That'll work.
I may not be crazy where I build massive things,
but everything that's out there has some part of DIY to it.
These are some of the handmade wood items that we made.
We put lights in them also.
These go all the way around the eaves of the house.
We have 278 handmade wood figures.
There are some reindeers, Santas.
Susan: Alan does a lot of the outside display work.
I do the painting and artistry.
Alan: There's the missus redoing part of the train
that was old and cracked up.
We've been decorating over 36 years,
and every year we got a little more and a little more
and a little more. We're going crazy with lights.
But then the madness started.
Here's the secret to our display.
A scroll with names on it.
Santa has a scroll with the names on it.
We started something like that many years ago.
We put our children's names, the grandkids' names,
and a lot of the neighborhood's names on scrolls
and put them in the yard.
And now what happens every time a kid comes,
if their name isn't on a scroll, we add it.
These are all the new names that we got last year.
I believe we had 320 to 330 new names.
Another 30 new scrolls.
Currently we have 2,295 names,
and I've written every single one.
It's only the beginning.
Right, dear? Yep.
Christmas means to me tradition.
I love to have traditions in the family
that stay with you your whole life.
And I think we've created that with our display.
The kids get to come find their names year after year.
It's pretty cool.
The last scroll of the year to be put in.
Susan: Alright, babe, they're all in.
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Hi! Oh, my gosh! Hi, everybody!
Look at this!
[ Cheers and applause continue ]
Hi, everyone.
Welcome, Taniya, I'm Alan Kopatz.
My wife, Susan.
We've been decorating for over 30 years.
And we just had our 36-year anniversary yesterday.
Yeah, baby! Happy anniversary. [ Cheers and applause ]
Thank you. We've been decorating for so long,
it gets a little bigger, a little better every year.
It really comes from the heart. Everything is handmade.
Oh, I love the way you're building it up.
I'm so excited to see it.
So tell me, how do we get it started?
Well, let's step up to our table up here.
Alright, you guys, this is it!
[ Cheers and applause ]
It's been on my wish list for many years to be on the show.
We're finally here. Yes.
All I need you to do is to plug it in,
and we'll see magic. Okay. Are you guys ready?
[ Crowd cheers ] Yeah!
Count down. Ready?
3, 2, 1!
Light it up!
Yeah! Whoa!
3, 2, 1!
Light it up!
Taniya: Yeah!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Wow! This is gorgeous.
Absolutely beautiful.
Wow. You guys, this is amazing!
Starting with the snowflakes on the roof
and how they're propped up, I love that.
And they're even flying in the sky.
And then you have -- Is that a gingerbread school?
Alan: Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It sure is.
But you got penguins and reindeers.
Yes. And these beautiful things growing out of the ground.
They're scrolls just like Santa with his scrolls. Ah!
Every kid that comes here, their name is out there on a scroll.
What a cute idea.
It looks like there's thousands of them in your yard.
And are those stockings and candles in the driveway?
Three stockings, three candles. Nice.
It makes the driveway a little bit better.
And I can see Santa kissing Mrs. Claus.
Maybe it's their anniversary, too.
Who knows? Well, I can't wait.
I'd love to get in there. You guys want to come?
[ Crowd cheers ] Alright, come on. Let's go!
♪♪
There's so many names, isn't there?
Man: Let's keep looking.
What are we looking for? What letters? W-E-S.
That's right, Wes.
-Harrison, right here. -Oh, there!
So, Taniya, we have 2,295 names out in our yard.
All you have to do is come in here and find your name.
For example, let's see, Taniya. There I am!
So that means your name is out there somewhere on a scroll.
Now finding it is the tricky part. Nah, nah, nah, nah.
We'll get to that later. Okay.
Now, if your name wasn't on the list, what happens?
Take the notebook, put your name on here,
put it in Santa's box. Well, look at this.
Just to show you.
Oh, wow. And it's really surprising.
Every night I'll have 10, 15, 20 names in here.
We've been getting, on the average,
about 200 to 300 names every year.
That's amazing.
There's 192 scrolls out here. What?!
Yeah, all these scrolls are handmade.
Basically, we have a wood scroll.
We can just pull it up.
Oh, wait. So you have rebar in the ground.
So what we do is I take PVC three-quarter-inch pipe,
a couple C-clamps screwed in,
the lights are all siliconed all the way around the stock.
Incredible. And then what we do is drop the rebar in.
Rebar is spaced every 13 inches around the yard.
To be exact. To be exact.
12 inches is too close.
And 14 is too far. Ah, that's so great.
♪♪
Hey, is that my name?
Man: There it is.
W-E-S.
It's me! It's me! Man: Where? Where?
No way!
Yeah! [ Laughs ]
These are so cool. They're flawless.
They look like they just jumped out of a children's book.
I noticed you did a similar setup here.
So what? Do you have the rebar in there?
And then the pipe. Actually, here, I got an easy one.
Oh, it's like -- it's on a kickstand.
On the back, we just basically have a couple pieces of PVC.
Right. The best part about this,
since this is rock, you don't see the bases of anything.
You don't see it at all. Everything is buried.
The rock is something special.
This all used to be grass.
About 12 years ago, we redesigned our whole yard.
You can walk through our whole display now.
Everything is rock.
I can hide everything under the rock.
All the wires, the poles.
So it makes it look really clean.
If you get a bird's-eye view,
it actually looks like a beautiful angel with wings.
You changed your entire landscape specifically for
your Christmas display? Yeah, it was a lot of work,
but it's well worth it.
Well, Taniya, we got a lot to see.
Let's rock and roll. Let's go!
I noticed this cute display from the street.
Santa and Mrs. Claus sneaking in a little smooch.
I love that it's moving, so it actually does grab
your attention when the lights go on.
There's a motor in the back,
and then it has little pins with a swivel,
so the arms go back and forth.
That's actually been in the window for about 20 years now.
It's so cute. It's a really adorable touch.
♪♪
Alan: I want to show you something I think is really special.
There's 58 snowflakes up there, all LED.
58? 58.
Up on top here, we have 32 little elves.
I have a Spanish tile roof. Right.
And everybody says,
how do you get it up there without breaking the tiles?
Right. I came up with a great idea.
The snowflake has a bracket on the back.
It's just simple wood.
There's a little three-inch spring clip.
That doesn't break the tile when you let it go?
Your attention to detail is through the roof.
You like that one?
♪♪
Oh, that's my daughter Mae.
Right there.
Taniya, you see all these names?
I do. This started the madness.
Our kids' names, our grandkids' names,
our friends, the neighbors.
When we had the grass, this was out here in grass.
Well, one day I have a first-grade teacher
that lives down the street.
She brought her class down here with 20 kids
and one of the kids said, "I can't find my name."
I looked at her. I said, "We got something here."
Yep. So what I did,
I had the first-grade teacher give me their names,
and next year I had made scrolls.
I put them out in the yard. The reaction I got.
It broke my heart.
I saw these kids jumping up and down.
So happy. "Mom, my name, my name, my name."
2,295 names later and here we are.
What I love about that story is that you heard it.
Oh, yeah. You heard that kid,
and you heard and understood how important
and what that would mean to them.
And you listened.
I feel a little bit like the little kid.
Like, where's my name? I want to know where it is.
You are very close.
Oh, this is the hot spot right here?
You need to find out. I'm not going to tell you where.
Try to find your name.
I'm going to look. You're a little cold.
Cold? I'll tell you what. Oh, you're getting warm.
Oh, am I getting warm? You're getting warm.
Tulip. I'm looking for all the T's.
Oh, Tayler. Nope. Not me.
No. You see how it can take a long time to find your name?
Yes. Where is it? Ah, ah, ah.
Ohhh. Yes! There it is!
That is so fun. Look at my smile.
The Kopatz family display is designed for kids
but loved by everyone.
This display is full of heart and the most incredible DIY.
Taniya, it's been an honor having you here.
I hope you enjoyed yourself. I had a blast.
I've never seen this done before
on "The Great Christmas Light Fight."
It's so unique.
You're making every kid feel so special.
Those -- Those words mean a lot to me.
If I can have a hug.
You can have all the hugs you want.
Come here, sweetie.
I can think of 2,295 reasons
why this was so heartwarming,
but I've seen some amazing displays
and they were all so different with artistry,
technology, and creativity.
But ultimately,
only one family will make it to the top of the list.
Bye. Merry Christmas!
Wow. No matter what happens, bring some smiles to everybody.
Yep.
Narrator: Want to throw your Santa hat
in the ring for another season?
Apply now at ABC.com/casting.
♪♪
So happy to see you again.
This competition was chock full of innovation
and a whole lot of love for the holidays.
The Irvin family from San Angelo, Texas,
created a down-home country carnival.
They had interactive games for kids to enjoy.
Nice job.
And the entire property was bristling
with country Christmas charm
from the rebar to the reindeer.
This guy is 27-foot tall.
Taniya: And the centerpiece of their Texas-sized winter wonderland
was a hand-built Ferris wheel.
You made every piece of this? Every piece.
It's next level.
All: Three, two, one.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Taniya: The Lunar family from Willoughby, Ohio,
created a holiday pixel paradise.
Genius.
Their luminous light show was a perfect blend
of DIY construction and modern lighting technology
that was bumping with energy.
It has to go to the moon.
This is gorgeous.
The Kopatz family from Riverside,
California, made children's Christmas wishes come true
with their names in lights.
Everything was handmade and truly from the heart.
Look at my smile.
Santa, you got here just in the nick of time.
And now I get to deliver my absolute
favorite Christmas gift of them all.
Okay. Hit it, Santa!
[ Honking "Jingle Bells" ]
Merry Christmas!
♪♪
Hi.
Oh, my gosh.
Give me a big hug. How are you guys?
Super excited to see you.
Yeah, I'm excited to see you guys too.
Here. Come on over this way.
-Hi. -Hi. How are you?
-I can't believe you're here. -Nice to see you.
I'm here.
Welcome back to Ohio. Thank you.
You know, I have to tell you,
your display dazzled like billions of stars in the sky.
And it had me just over the moon.
And that's why you're the champions
of "The Great Christmas Light Fight."
And this $50,000 is yours.
Ohh.
You guys are gonna make me cry.
It's wild, huh?
This is crazy.
Did you see this coming?
No, no. The reasons why I chose you,
first of all, your display was massive.
You actually designed and built everything.
Amazing.
I love the colors that you displayed.
It was like a piece of art.
Truly, one of the things that I really,
really loved was how you incorporated things
from your childhood.
So you had a little something for everybody.
Thank you so very much.
He has worked so hard over the last couple years.
It definitely teaches you a thing or two about work ethic,
and I'm just so proud of him.
He's done everything for us our entire lives,
and it's nice to get to see him have this for him, you know?
My job as a dad is to teach them to work hard and just dream big.
You fail every time you don't try.
And, you know,
to have them here and have all this, we're blessed.
I know, without a shadow of the doubt
that your stepdad, George, is so proud of you.
Ohh.
I do have one thing that I actually haven't given you yet.
So if you'll wait right here, I'll be right back.
It's happening.
Are we ready? I don't know if --
I don't think you can ever be ready for this.
No. Oh, my gosh.
I do feel like this warrants a strut.
It's like a trophy strut. You know?
Yas. Work. Strutting in and voilà!
Yes! Haha.
Of course, you know,
it would not be a "Light Fight" trophy if it did not do this.
Got to have some lights.
Oh, my God! Guys, we did it!
Candice: Thank you so much. It looks beautiful.
I feel like my feet can't touch the ground right now.
I feel like I'm flying.
This is just crazy.
It's insane. Crazy.
So many people say go big or go home.
We say go big at home, and look what it won us.
[ Vocalizing ]
Where should we put this trophy?
Taniya, I think we got the perfect place for it.
Yeah? I'll follow you. Yeah.
I think I'm thinking what you're thinking.
Only one place for this. Right there.
All right. [ Cheers and applause ]
George is keeping a good eye on it.
-Love it. Love it. -[ Cheers and applause ]
-Thank you so much. -Yeah.
-Good job, Lunars.
♪♪