Crazy for Christmas? Naperville man may be
When you're as crazy about decorating as Nick Thomas of Naperville, the holidays just flow from one to the next.
When Halloween ends, its components are integrated into the elaborate Christmas display that follows.
“The tombstones become Christmas trees and the mausoleum becomes Santa's workshop and the funeral parlor becomes the house where Santa sits and greets all his kid friends,” Thomas said of his house on the 1100 block of Conan Doyle Drive.
The decorations, which use 30,000 lights, have been a fixture on his cul-de-sac for the past 19 years, set up with help from his family and friends.
“It's the big kid in the 60 year-old that does it — Crazy Nick,” he said.
His Halloween display was a major hit this year, thanks to Steve Jandick, his neighbor and friend.
Jandick programmed the singing Halloween faces to popular rock songs.
“Once you get a rock group that acknowledges the decorations, things go absolutely crazy,” Thomas said. “This year we had AC DC, Queen and Kongos acknowledge us, so that's how we ended up being on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and all the major stations in Chicago. We've had two million hits on YouTube.”
But the Christmas display isn't too shabby, either, offering singing Christmas trees, each of which has 12 extension cords to run the lights.
“It's all run through a computer-program-generated system, which synchronizes each mouth movement and eye blink,” Thomas said.
Each song takes between 10 to 20 hours to program.
During the offseason his displays are housed in rented storage and his garage and crawl space.
Thomas' day job is Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, where he chairs of the fine arts and humanities department.
He also serves as music director at St. Isaac Jogues in Hinsdale. Before that, he was music director for the Cathedral of St. Raymond in Joliet.
Thomas will keep his Christmas display set up through the New Year.
“Hopefully we won't have another polar vortex like we did last year, where I finally got the last decoration out March 27.” Thomas said.
New this year is the Lockport-based charity, My Joyful Heart, to which Thomas will forward donations received from visitors to his “Christmas House in Naperville” The faith-based organization, myjoyfulheart.org, provides basic life essentials and encouragement to children in need.
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