HEBRON -- Every holiday season, Daniel Powell turns his Buckfield Road home into a dazzling Christmas light display with tens of thousands of lights. For years, the display has been a centerpiece for community members looking to celebrate a season of peace, joy and hope.
Powell said the countless hours of taking lights and displays out of storage, making repairs, replacing LED lights and then stringing them up is all about bringing happiness to others and continuing childhood traditions.
"We do it for the love of Christmas, seeing families coming out and keeping the tradition alive," he said, adding that when he was a child, his family would travel to the Lewiston and Auburn area to check out all the neighborhood lights. "We still do that now. Just last night, we went to Monmouth to see some big displays. I want to help families make those same kinds of memories."
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The tradition is also an addiction, Powell said with a laugh. The display consists of 62,070 lights, just over 1,000 more than last year, he said. The lighted messages of "Joy to the World," "Peace on Earth" and "Merry Christmas" along with the countless homemade shapes, fixtures and long runs of lights, which he refers to as the "forest of lights," take up about three-quarters of his 2-acre property.
Powell expanded the family's tradition at his childhood home in Turner where he began hanging lights of his own. He continued the seasonal fanfare with his family in 2008 when they lived on Winter Street in Auburn.
Daniel Powell's home in Hebron features a "forest of lights" with 62,070 LED bulbs and festive displays across his 2-acre property, celebrating the season's joy, peace, and hope. The dazzling showcase runs nightly, welcoming visitors to walk through and embrace the holiday spirit. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
"My wife's grandmother passed away," he said. "She flew out to the funeral and I wanted to surprise her, so I talked to my landlord and he let me put up lights. It was the first year I started to hang lights again, and then it just progressed."
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The display was about 1,000 lights that year and by the time the Powells left Auburn in 2012, his display clocked in at 14,000 lights.
Powell takes the lights out of storage in September and works just about every day in October and up until Thanksgiving -- the "lights on" day -- making repairs, replacing bulbs and setting up. When the Powells closed on their Hebron home in November 2013, he was running two months behind getting everything ready. It was the only year in which he had fewer lights up than the previous year. However, the finished product was nothing to scoff at as Powell managed to set up around 10,000 lights.
"It just seems to grow every year," he said.
When Powell turns the lights on officially on Thanksgiving, over 100 family members, friends and community members turn out for hot cocoa and candy canes ahead of the countdown.
Once the lights are on, the display attracts vehicle after vehicle, particularly on the weekend. Powell said from 5-9 p.m., there is almost always someone stopped, looking at the lights. What most people don't know about the display, Powell said, is that everyone is free to pull over and walk the property.
Up close, it's hard to imagine one man can put on the whole show -- but Powell does.
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"I do about 90% of the lights myself. My wife helps with the bigger stuff and my daughter comes out with me a lot. I call it 'keeping me company,'" Powell said with a laugh. His son, 17, and daughter, 20, have grown up with the tradition. "My daughter's a bigger Christmas nut than I am, which is hard to believe."
Daniel Powell's home on the Buckfield Road in Hebron is lit up Wednesday with tens of thousands of Christmas lights and displays. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
Despite the vastness of the display, energy costs are relatively reasonable thanks to LED lights, Powell said.
"People always ask about the electric bill," he said. "It's funny because it costs me way more to run my air conditioners in the summer than it does to run this display. December isn't even my worst electric bill."
He joked about the difference between his display and the famous Griswold family from the movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." Powell's crowd counts down with his family in Griswold fashion. "If I was using all incandescents, that'd be a different story. I'd probably have set something on fire by now."
While Powell builds a giant centerpiece every year, like last year's giant snowman and this year's 12-foot-diameter wreath, he purposely leaves out Santa Claus and his entourage.
"Christmas, for us, is about the birth of Christ. That's what I try to promote in my display," he said. "I don't have anything against Santa, but I want the focus to be on what Christmas means to us."
He said he also wants the focus simply to be sharing joy with the community. Seeing people's reactions is his favorite part. "You can't see the display until you come around the corner, and I love watching people turn the corner and go, 'Whoa!'"
Powell said he hopes people will continue to embrace the display and keep the tradition of holiday lights alive. "We love seeing families come out and spend time together. That's what it's all about."
Powell's lights are on display at his home at 664 Buckfield Road from 4:30-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 4:30-11 p.m. Friday through Sunday. See Powell's Facebook page for more information.
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