Hodgson Family Lights: The most Christmassy house and garden in Cross Gates

National World - LocalTV

Dom and Heather Hodgson discuss their Christmas light experience in Cross Gates which supports Martin House Children’s Hospice.

Transcript

00:00 (wind blowing)

00:02 - Halloween was our busiest Halloween we've ever had.

00:11 Thousands of people,

00:12 thousands of packets of Haribo given away,

00:14 and we raised over a thousand pounds in less than a week.

00:17 It was absolutely incredible.

00:19 We're really happy with it.

00:20 The day that Halloween finishes,

00:22 we switch it off and then we start unplugging

00:24 and start bringing out some of the Christmas stuff.

00:26 So it just doesn't end.

00:28 We don't really leave the house until January,

00:31 and then we go and have a nice meal.

00:33 - We've got a few new things this year.

00:35 The reindeer, the Santa,

00:37 the key piece I think over there is the gingerbread house,

00:39 which we're really happy with.

00:42 It looks brilliant.

00:44 We're trying out some new things.

00:45 Obviously we don't work on TV,

00:46 but we've got some smells going around.

00:49 Yeah.

00:50 - We've got some new interactive features,

00:51 which aren't live today,

00:53 but the way that our show works

00:54 is we add something every day.

00:55 One of our friends who visits every day

00:57 has requested a train.

00:59 So we've tried to do that.

00:59 We've got the selfie elf,

01:01 which you can take a picture with,

01:02 put your head through and change the color of his jacket.

01:05 And yeah, so there's just a lot of stuff we've added

01:08 and moved around.

01:09 - We're gonna be adding some new songs as well.

01:11 We've got 23 on the list at the moment,

01:14 and that's gonna keep growing.

01:15 Each one of these little lights is programmable.

01:18 What we do is we sit at the computer.

01:20 Sometimes we have to listen to the songs

01:22 really, really slowly to get the mouth movements

01:24 just right on the thing.

01:25 We try and design it around the beats of the music

01:27 and the mouth movements and everything like that

01:29 and drum beats and things.

01:30 And it is like everything is synchronized in our main show.

01:33 And then that can be a little bit overwhelming for some.

01:36 So that's why we have our sensory sessions.

01:38 We're bringing them back this year.

01:39 So there'll be a few times a week before the show.

01:41 And that's when things are a lot quieter like this,

01:44 but we're just with some smooth background music,

01:45 just so you can think.

01:46 We're about, what would you say?

01:48 I think it's-

01:48 - 46,000, did you say?

01:49 - About 46,000 individually programmable lights.

01:52 So each one is programmable, like Heather said.

01:55 We call them pixels, but to people, they're just lights.

01:58 And yeah, honestly, I've not plugged it

02:00 into a wattage calculator.

02:02 I'm afraid to, but all I know is it does add a little bit

02:05 to the electric, but like I say, it's a hobby.

02:07 That's the cost of doing business.

02:09 And we genuinely spend more on Haribo.

02:12 We try and work with the neighbors quite a lot

02:14 to make sure that traffic doesn't build up.

02:15 We run them for extended hours to make sure that people

02:18 can just come in and out.

02:19 And we have a steady flow, which I think works really well.

02:22 We do it for one reason and well, two reasons.

02:25 One is to give something everybody to enjoy,

02:27 but the main reason is to raise money for Martin House.

02:29 Although it's free, people can come and not,

02:32 like we would appreciate any donations.

02:34 And we work with the charity a lot.

02:36 They're coming down in a few days, I think.

02:39 And we're really, really pleased

02:41 with our relationship with them.

02:42 - Thank you to everybody for liking, sharing.

02:45 I think we've already started planning 2024 now, aren't we?

02:47 - Oh, definitely.

02:48 There's some plans there.

02:49 You walk around, you go, we could do this, we could do that.

02:51 I would be remiss if I didn't say that Scarlett

02:54 would be here to take all the credit if she was.

02:57 But she's with the grandparents at the moment,

02:59 but obviously it's her show and she's done all the work.

03:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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