A neighbourhood was drawn together by a display of networked Christmas lights. When Matt Riggs, who lives on the block with his wife Kerry, saw that his neighbour across the street was suffering from depression in December 2020, he wanted to offer some holiday happiness. Riggs, who had been going through a rough patch during the epidemic, put up his Christmas lights early because he wanted some cheer. He was able to get one of the strands across the street, over a tree, and into his neighbor’s house.
House by house, the Christmas lights were connected until the entire street was illuminated. Riggs told CNN that they did it again this year, with one neighbour hand-crafting a metal sign that says “Love lives here.”
“I was decorating for the holidays and I was running a little late. It was before Thanksgiving, but it was a difficult moment for all of us. I didn’t want to wait any longer “Riggs recalls the previous season. “I wanted to go ahead and turn on the lights. So I was climbing the tree and running lights up in it to see if I could convince them to cross the roadway. And I was overjoyed when I finally got them to cross the street and stay illuminated.”
“Once Matt did it, I talked to my neighbour across the street and said, ‘Hey, let’s do it too,'” she adds. “It’ll bookend the block, you’ll go through one light, and then you’ll drive out of it when you leave. But it’s a lot more difficult than one may think to hang those lights.”
That’s when Tom Desert stepped in. He’s the skilled neighbour who quickly learned how to rig one strand after another, forming a canopy over the block and laying anchors in each lawn to keep the strands in place.
“When there was a work to be done, Tom came out and assisted us since it was quite difficult. Those lights are hefty “According to Commisso. “Tom was able to get our lights up, and then we were like, let’s do it, everybody.”
She claims that a swarm of neighbours piled into a van and “clean out Home Depot.”
A loving message
Melissa DiMuzio, a neighbour, wanted to add a beautiful touch. She made a sign out of wire hangers that reads “Love dwells here” while binge-watching Netflix episodes. She covered it with lights, and Desert assisted in getting it shown as well.
“I had missed hanging my own strand, and I really wanted to participate,” DiMuzio tells CNN. “It was surreal to see six or seven light strands strung across the roadway. As a result, I created the sign.”
DiMuzio canvassed his neighbours to see what they thought the sign should read.
“That allowed me to think outside of the pleasant Christmas realm,” she explains. “The last one was love lives here, which is on a wooden plaque in my garage that my mother gave me.”
“We have 32 homes on this block, and despite differences in thoughts and beliefs, whichever you look at it, everybody here loves one another,” he adds. “I believe that the fact that love thrives here explains how things operate on this street.”
“It’s a really wonderful environment,” she explains, “because we raise everyone else’s kids around here.”
This year, the block has also added a large mailbox where children may write letters for Santa Claus to ship to the North Pole.
Desert is also in charge of bringing everything down in January.
“I might have to take a day off to remove it. At the very least, the high ones “he claims. “They’re around 30 feet in the air on the block’s tallest points.”
Riggs says the neighbour he was hoping to cheer up is doing better these days. Everyone’s spirits have been elevated by the collaborative light show.
“That happens to all of us from time to time,” Riggs explains. “Last year at this time, she was in a bad place, and I was as well. I’d applied for and been offered three jobs, all of which were cancelled due to Covid, and I was heartbroken and dejected. This would be a nice area to go through for anyone who needs a little light in their lives.”
