Photography by Jennifer Silverberg
Webster Groves resident Gary Zehnle, 56, covers his house with so many Christmas lights, you just might be able to see them from space. (His guess is 40,000, though we sincerely hope he didn’t actually count.) Inspired by a neighbor, Zehnle started around age 12, and his award-winning display has grown a little every year since.
How long does it take to put up all those lights? I start the first week of October. If I don’t start that early, I’d have to call them Easter lights, because I just wouldn’t be able to finish it.
That must be a lot of work. Each year I do it, I get enthused at first, and then I start getting burned out. I’m like, “Man, why do I even do this?” But if I can do something new and change it, it makes it exciting for me.
Such as? There’s something new every year. There’s so much that I really don’t know that people notice. One year, when I used all multicolored lights, I took every set of lights I had and made it go like green, red, blue, orange, white—something like that. I did that [pattern] all the way around the house. I bet you not a person ever noticed… Now my house is all green, with a little bit of red accented in it.
Are there any tricks that make setting up faster? I do everything really old-fashioned. I don’t use any of these new light-hangers that they have. I don’t like the looks of them. My lights are put up for the most part with tacks and tape on the roof. I put hooks on everything. Maybe it’s just force of habit. I still do the same thing I did 30 years ago.
When do you turn them on for the first time? November 30 is what I shoot for.
What are some of the most elaborate aspects of your display? The inside of my garage is a Santa’s workshop. I think I had, last year, six Christmas trees in there. There’s probably 15 or 20 elves that are in there. It’s first-class stuff. Some of the things that are in there cost $1,200.
Do a lot of people come to see it? Oh yeah. It’s quite an extravagant light setup. There are nights when there are cars lined up on both sides of the street. I guess if I weren’t interested in it, I wouldn’t be a happy neighbor either. Nobody has really said anything to me. But I know.
Do you use timers? I had all the electric in my house changed over so my lights all come on at one time. If you’re sitting in front of my house at 5 o’clock, it’s like snap, and all the lights come on. The garage door opens up automatically. It’s kind of neat to see, if you’re out there, because you can actually follow the long runs of lights.
What is your electric bill? If my wife were here, I could tell you. But I think it’s like five times what it normally is.
Your wife must be a saint to put up with this. She has said things about it a few times. I think she enjoys it. She gets a little upset with me that I get so I’m afraid to leave the house. I put alarms on everything so nothing can be stolen. Otherwise, I can’t sleep. But just the fact of having all of that electric burning and not being around your house makes it so we don’t ever want to be gone.
You don’t want to come home to a pile of ash. Exactly. It wouldn’t look good, especially since my wife’s family owns an electric company.
What advice would you give people wanting to amp up their light displays? Don’t have extra lights. Don’t use lights as extension cords going from bush to bush. If you’re trying to do something special, being neat and orderly is the thing.
Any other keys? I try to do things different than anybody else does. Everybody got into the—what do they call them?—icicle-type lights. I went out and bought them, and before I got them up, I noticed that everybody had them and was hanging them. I never even used them. I gave them away to somebody. I said, “If everybody’s got them, it’s not special.”
Is there camaraderie among light fanatics? It’s one of these things that everybody thinks their house is better. When you put that much time into something, you don’t want somebody else telling you that somebody else’s house is better. Not that I don’t know there are some out there that are better, but I don’t know that I want to admit it.
I heard that you put lights on your neighbor’s house, too. He moved this year, so I won’t be putting any up. I just kept downsizing every year. His house wasn’t wired for it. I was blowing fuses over there all the time. I just started getting carried away on his house. It just didn’t have the electric to cover it. I started running some of it to mine.
Do you have special wiring? I have circuits all over my house. There are probably, I don’t know, 25 or 30 20-amp circuits outside my house.
You have three sons. Are they into putting up lights? My one son was getting interested in it. He started doing it, and then he got disinterested in it when he found out how much work it is and that you have to someday take them down.
I suppose that’s a major challenge. I try to get all my lights down for the most part in two days and stuck in my garage. Everything just has to be packed and packed. Everything that I have goes in the attic of my garage.
What makes it worth the effort? I enjoy the smaller kids who come by, especially when they walk up the driveway and look at the garage. A little kid that’s 5 or 6 just can’t believe what’s in there.
