Virginia Beach has its Holiday Lights on the Boardwalk ...
Virginia Beach has its Holiday Lights on the Boardwalk. Norfolk has the Botanical Garden of Lights.
And Chesapeake? We have Dennis Maulding.
The Great Bridge resident has raised the bar among illumination luminaries.
With an estimated 15,000 blinking beacons adorning his Ivanhoe Court house and yard, he hasn’t set any records for light bulb usage in Chesapeake this season. What sets him apart is he set his winter wonderland to music.
Each night at 5:30, strains of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Wizards in Winter” punctuate the air, signaling the start of another 4½-hour Christmas concert for drive-by listeners and porch-sittin’ neighbors. The other track is a medley of three carols, including “Silent Night.”
Maulding, 44, is busy adding more songs, but it takes him about 14 hours to choreograph a single tune. Like a symphony conductor, he must know when to blink his nets, when to fade the icycles and when to flash the minis.
Daughter Rachel, who will turn 21 later this week, is busy programming the “Hallelujah Chorus.” It’s how the James Madison University junior English major is spending part of her Christmas break.
Like troubleshooting a burned-out bulb, this year’s obsession can be traced to a single source. Maulding’s boss at Virginia International Terminals showed him an online video last year.
“I came home and told my wife, ‘I gotta have that,’” Maulding said.
Pam Maulding, 44, said it took six months before she conceded to the purchase.
Dennis ordered the equipment from lightorama.com. It set the family back $1,400, but it put him back on the map among holiday decorators.
He now draws 80 amps each night just to make the season brighter for his adoring fans.
Rachel, the heir apparent, is right behind him.
“It makes us look like the Griswolds,” she said proudly of the Lampoon movie family .
The neighbors don’t seem to mind the monthlong attraction – or the nightly parade of gawkers who drive into the court, park and enjoy the show as if they’re at a theater.
“Our neighbors have been really good,” Dennis said. “They know I have a problem.”
“They know,” added Pam, “you’re normal the other 11 months of the year.”
Son Mikey, 7, hasn’t yet caught the bug.
“I don’t spread it,” he said about telling his second-grade classmates .
But he admitted it has benefits – like the school girls who come knocking on the door to admire the lights.
The family clearly enjoys the thank-you notes in the mailbox, the custom-designed “Best Christmas Lights in Chesapeake Award” left behind and the “Merry Christmas” greetings from passers-by.
Dennis said it’s just fun.
“I ask ‘why?’ every year?” Pam said.
“She knows why,” Dennis chimed back. “I’m obsessed.”