When driving around Flin Flon looking at Christmas lights, one house in east Flin Flon has stood out for decades. Shelley and Garry Wallaker are now entering their 30th Christmas season with one of the town’s brightest holiday traditions - literally.
For almost every year over the past three decades, the Wallakers have decked out their Hemlock Drive home with a blindingly beautiful display of electric lights.
Garry said it takes about eight hours to put up the display each year, including checking the lights indoors and placing them outside. This year, the Wallakers have included strings of lights on their eavestroughs, around the windows, the garage, their front door, their front lawn, the trees near their house and more.
The tradition started out when the family moved into their home back in 1989.
“It would have been 30 years ago. Adrian would be 31 this year and we moved here when she was 10 months old. We started the first year,” Garry said.
Back then, the Wallakers were inspired in large part from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the 1989 holiday classic featuring Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo among others. The film chronicles the holiday misadventures of the Griswolds, led by paterfamilias Clark, including him putting the final touches on a mindbogglingly large light display.
“That’s what the original idea was,” said Shelley.
In the movie, the light display covers the entire house including the roof, blinds the neighbours and causes a neighbourhood-wide power shortage. The Wallakers have never gone quite that far - with exceptions.
“Everything goes dim in the house,” joked Garry.
“One of our neighbours always used to bug me about it. He said at his house, he’d know if our lights were on because it’d all get dark.”
The neighbours are typically on board with the display, as long as the lights are off by 11 p.m. The reaction from the community is overwhelmingly positive.
“The kids enjoy it. It’s really fun for the kids,” Garry said.
“My wife and family like them. I do it for my wife and my kids. They love them and enjoy them a lot.”
“We get compliments through the community, we get support,” Shelley added.
The family has been affectionately nicknamed “the Griswolds” by some neighbours for their take on the traditional lights. Back in 1998, the Wallakers even won an award from the Flin Flon and District Chamber of Commerce for their display.
“Lots of people stop by and take pictures. We were on a Christmas scavenger hunt one year and there were a bunch of people who came and stood in front of the house for the scavenger hunt,” Shelley said.
“We did not know, then we asked [daughter]Melanie and she said, ‘Oh, you guys are on a scavenger hunt!’”
The Wallakers have only missed a couple of Christmases - one several years ago during a family health struggle and last year, when the family went out of town for the Christmas Season. Now, with family members returning home for the holidays, the light show had to make a comeback.
These days, it’s Garry, Shelley and their pug Skoal doing the work and spreading holiday cheer in their own bright way.
“I feel we’ve done it so long that Christmas just isn’t Christmas without them,” Shelley said.
“In this day and age, not to be cheesy, we have everything. We don’t need anything. If that’s what’s going to give people joy, that’s awesome.”
