christmas in lights

SOAP LAKE — The lights on the five-acre spread along Road A Northeast a little ways south of Soap Lake are bright and beguiling.

A house surrounded in pale blue lights. White “trees” of winding lights topped by bright stars. Paths in the snow lit by multicolored strings of light — red, green, yellow, orange. A birdbath and a mailbox wrapped in red lights.

“People used to do this a lot when I was growing up, but not so much anymore,” said Scott Forman, who added that he did it for his kids.

The glow at 19477 Rd. A NE. just sort of began gradually, Forman said.

“I live out here in the country, and over the last few years, just started accumulating, just keep going and going and going,” he said.

Forman said it took him about eight hours over the course of several days to string all these lights up — something he would do after coming home from his day job selling pivot sprinklers for Irrigation Specialists.

And he has no idea how many lights he actually puts up. Nor how much the display adds to his electric bill.

“It’s a lot,” he said.

During the height of the Christmas season, Forman said he can sit and watch the cars drive along to see his display.

“We get cars going by, slowing down, it’s kind of neat,” he said.

He intends to keep the lights up at least until New Year’s, but said that many of the inflatable figures he has out there — Santa Claus, a reindeer — will come down sooner because of the wind.

He plans to keep putting his lights up, even as his get kids get older, and hopes he can even expand the bright glow he currently has.

“I’d like to do the tree going up and down the road,” he said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.