Allen Family Lights overwhelmed by support

With Christmas getting closer and closer, Trevor Allen has been hard at work in his workshop.

For a week now, Allen has been busily rebuilding the Christmas light display that was badly damaged by a Grinch in a pickup truck.

The effort paid off for Allen, who had much of the damage repaired by this past Sunday.

“I put in a lot of hours on the weekend, up in the garage until 5 in the morning …,” he told Gormley. “I have a lot of it back up.

“The fence is probably the biggest build I have to do, so I’m still hoping to have that up by this weekend and everything back to normal by then.”

In the wake of the incident on Dec. 3, Allen received offers of help from around the world.

A company in the United States said it would rebuild the sign that accompanied the display in Regina’s northwest. Other Americans told Allen they would drive up to help him rebuild. Even Australians reached out to him to offer their assistance.

Allen said the reach of the story was “more than I ever dreamed of.”

“People that are doing the holiday lights, it’s almost a large community that I’m now part of — I really wasn’t before — and they’ve all reached out to me offering support, willing to overnight supplies to me,” he said. “It has been absolutely amazing.”

Allen has been equally amazed by the reactions in Regina.

People have stopped by with hot chocolate while he has been working on the display in his yard. Others have sent letters of support or even made donations to help the cause.

“Even little kids (have been) bringing their piggy banks by to try to donate and try to fix the lights,” Allen said. “I even had a personal letter from a little three-year-old saying, ‘I’m three years old, I can help fix it.’ It has been absolutely amazing.”

It all has been inspiring for Allen.

“I had never really understood the impact this had and that’s just driving me to go bigger and better,” he said, noting he plans to expand the display to the second storey of his home next year.

“The stories I’ve heard have been absolutely amazing and I’m going to continue doing this. (This year’s incident) is not going to bring me down and I’m going to keep putting the show on for everybody that is enjoying it.”

Candy Cane Lane also lit up

Another annual light show is on in the northwest.

Organizer Mark Jaegli said on the Greg Morgan Morning Show that Candy Cane Lane now has between 380 and 400 homes participating.

The show is open daily until Dec. 23 from 6:30 p.m., to 9 p.m.

“Everybody gets into this whole peacefulness for Christmas and the joy,” Jaegli said. “We’ve got people who are going through and paying for the entry of course and (saying) ‘Oh, I’ll pay for the people behind me.’

“It’s a paying-it-forward thing that has been happening now.”

The only thing that can affect the show is the weather. Frigid temperatures mean the show can’t go on.

“When it gets to about -24, depending on the wind, it’s too hard on the inflatables and the displays and extremely hard on the volunteers,” Jaegli said. “You can’t have somebody standing inside the garage and chasing the people away.”