By Dylan Reubenking
dylan@yelmonline.com
At 5 p.m. on the first Saturday of December every year, the Flott family lights up the entire Carter Loop neighborhood in Yelm with a display of about 80,000 Christmas lights and dozens of handmade decorations.
The Flotts — Anna, Brian and their four children — have hung up and added to their radiant display each year since 2006, and they decked out their residences in previous stops such as Nebraska and Indiana before coming to Yelm. But this year, the Flotts added a little extra Christmas spirit to their eye-popping spectacle.
Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus visited on Wednesday, Dec. 11, to take photos with children and hand out candy. They also helped encourage families to take part in the Flotts’ annual tradition of collecting nonperishable food items for the local food bank.
People often arrive shortly before 5 p.m. daily to watch as all the lights come on simultaneously as the clock strikes 5.
“I love it. I think it’s great. I just like watching all the kids light up,” Brian Flott said. “My favorite thing is to see how excited they get for them.”
The Clauses will return to the house, 15139 Carter Loop SE in Yelm, at 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 19. The display includes multiple trees, handmade Santa Claus and snowmen decorations, an illuminated American flag near the roof and ribbons for cancer, kidney cancer and diabetes.
The Flotts place the first strand of lights on the house right after Halloween each year, and their tradition is to watch “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” once the extensive project begins. Not only is the Flotts’ house comparable to the Griswolds’ home in the film, but their display is actually Clark Griswold-approved.
Brianna Flott, Brian and Anna’s daughter, traveled to New Jersey for Christmas Con last December and brought a photograph of her Yelm home to show to Chevy Chase, who was in attendance to sign autographs. Chase signed the photo and even posed for a picture holding the photograph. Both the signed picture and the photo with Chase are in a frame that the family shows off any chance they get.
Brianna was the only child of the four that helped Brian and Anna with the lights and decorations this year as their other three children live in other states. When their children were younger, they used to stand outside the house and hand out candy canes to people who would walk and drive by.
This year, the family rented a lift for the first time, and they’ve begun to follow a routine when they hang the lights.
“We don’t work on it every day, but most days we’re out here doing something to it. We finally have a pattern set up that makes it easier,” Brian Flott said. “We do the sides first. Then we do the roof and then the front. Before that, we were just kind of randomly putting them up, and it wasn’t working. The lift made all the difference in the world.”
Building the decorations together is another fun family tradition for the Flotts. One of the more prominent displays in the yard is a family of six snowmen designed to look like each member of the family.
“We’d all plan out what we were going to do new for Christmas each year, and we’d all vote on whatever we were going to do. The kids would help me make it, and it was a fun family thing to do,” Brian said.
The tradition first began with Brian and his father, who would hold a friendly competition with their neighbor to see who had the better Christmas lights. When Brian joined the military, he decorated his dorm room on base and has enjoyed putting up brazen displays every year.
While it takes about a month to put the decorations up, it only takes a couple of days to take all of it down. The Flotts use 18 bins to put the lights away, and Brian had to build a shed just to store everything.
It’s all for the love of Christmas, spending quality time with family and giving smiles to the Yelm community.
“I enjoy it. To me, it doesn’t feel like Christmas unless I put up all my Christmas lights,” Brian said.
