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Chilliwack family blown away by response to Christmas light display

The Blais family has decked out their yard with holiday decor, collecting food bank donations
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A scene from the Blais family Christmas yard display on Kipp Avenue. (Submitted photo)

Weeks after packing up their Halloween decorations, a Chilliwack family is at it again.

April and Josh Blais and their children Carter, Ben, Lucas and Emma recently relocated to Chilliwack from Abbotsford, moving into their first house on the corner of Kipp Avenue and Stanley Street. They brought their tradition of decorating their home with them.

Their house is now lit up in a eye-popping Christmas light display, and they are collecting donations for the local food bank.

“I posted it on a number of Facebook groups on Friday night and had a huge response with food bank donations in just the two nights over the weekend,” April Blais said. “In our seven or eight years in Abbotsford we never had this much support, so we are very grateful.”

Set up takes a few weeks, basically starting as soon as Halloween ends. The family does it in stages when the weather is decent.

There are thousands of lights and Blais said there are 50-plus inflatables.

READ MORE: Halloween house brings smiles to downtown Chilliwack neighborhood

READ MORE: Popular Christmas house in Chilliwack turns lights on early due to COVID-19

She said the display is not just a ‘look at this and carry on to the next house’ type of thing.

“We have a couple of places set up to get out of a car and take photos, such as a waving Santa at the front steps with a backdrop of a fireplace and Christmas tree behind him,” she said. “Since Santa won’t be in stores for pictures I thought maybe it would be nice to create a photo opportunity. We also have two wooden Christmas cut-outs with the faces cut out, for kids to stand behind and have their photos taken.”

The display is open from 3 to 9 p.m. daily, as long as it’s not too windy, and the food bank collection bin is right at the bottom of the front steps.

Chilliwack has a number of amazing light displays and a full list will be published in The Chilliwack Progress in the Dec. 17 edition.

In the meantime, the Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board (CADREB) has a Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/cadrebchristmaslights where people are submitting photos and addresses of houses that are lit up.


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A scene from the Blais family Christmas yard display on Kipp Avenue. (Submitted photo)
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A scene from the Blais family Christmas yard display on Kipp Avenue. (Submitted photo)
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A scene from the Blais family Christmas yard display on Kipp Avenue. (Submitted photo)


Eric Welsh

About the Author: Eric Welsh

I joined the Chilliwack Progress in 2007, originally hired as a sports reporter.
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