
Southport High School intern
A new tradition was born about seven years ago at the corner of Madison Avenue and Banta Road. That’s when Donna Snead-Shelton started putting up Christmas decorations at the home of her mother, Helen Snead.
Snead-Shelton was inspired to start decorating her mother’s yard with not only lights but also figurines because it’s big and sits on a main road.
Everything in the yard is illuminated ... from gutters to windows to bushes. The decorations range from candy canes to Christmas trees and reindeer.
Since the house sits on a main road, people stop by to tell them that they enjoy driving by and seeing the lights.
There are too many lights to count, and it takes three to four days to set up everything, and this does not include the time that it takes to troubleshoot the lights.
The family will spend at least one day ensuring that the lights still work. If they don’t, the Sneads will take a trip to Menards to buy new ones, along with purchasing lights that they think will look good in the yard.
There are so many lights on Snead’s roof that there are plug-ins on it.
“It’s a job,” Snead-Shelton said. But if the weather’s nice, putting them up is pretty fun.