Cloverdale, B.C., couple lights up lawn for charity
'This is our gift to the community,' says Andrea Bonneteau of annual Christmas light display
It takes 10 plastic storage tubs just to hold the extension cords the Bonneteaus need to power their annual Christmas light display.
"We've got thousands of lights," said Andrea Bonneteau. "We started out with just a little bit of a display, and every year we add something."
"We call it the Bonneteau Winter Wonderland."
For the last seven years, Bonneteau and her husband have decorated their Cloverdale, B.C., home with an increasingly elaborate display of lights, music, inflatable figures, and a full nativity scene hand built by Bonneteau's brother-in-law.
It's been such a success that they decided to start collecting donations for charity. All proceeds from this year's display will go to the Surrey Memorial Hospital's neonatal intensive care unit.
Up since Halloween
Bonneteau began work on the display the day before Halloween, a holiday for which the house had also been elaborately decorated.
Finding storage space for the off-season has been a challenge, but running the light display in the dark winter nights of December isn't cheap either. Bonneteau says she ends up paying an extra $600 on average in electricity each year to power the lights and decorations.
But it's worth it, she says, to see the looks of delight on the faces of everyone who comes to take in the sights and sounds.
"Just seeing everybody's smiles when they come up the driveway — they're all happy to see the lights, and that makes me happy," Bonneteau said.
The Bonneteau Winter Wonderland is located at 16951 Jersey Drive in Cloverdale, Surrey. Pacific Trackless Trains will be offering a train ride for neighbourhood kids on Friday, Dec. 22, between 6 and 7:30 p.m., with proceeds also going to the Surrey Memorial neonatal intensive care unit.
With files from CBC Radio One's On the Coast.