Holiday Lights Contest Editor's Choice Winner: DuPage County
Andrew Fillipp of 39 W. Madison St. in Villa Park is the Daily Herald's Holiday Lights Contest Editor's Choice winner for DuPage County.
We recently asked Fillipp about his display.
Q: How long have you been decorating your house?
A: I began decorating my house in 2014 and it has grown bigger and brighter year after year. Our lights have really taken off since 2017.
Q: What inspired you to go all out with your decorations?
A: My parents always had the elegant white lights when I was growing up. I was always a fan of multicolored lights until I started to decorate my house. I think the white gives it the classy Christmas feel.
Obviously Clark W. Griswold and “Christmas Vacation” inspired me the most when it came to going all out. The name of our display is the Fillipp Family Exterior Illuminations, because in the movie Clark says to his dad, “You taught me everything I know about Exterior Illumination.”
Q: How many hours does it take to put up the display?
A: This year it took me over 50 hours to set everything up. I spent every day I had off from work for about three weeks — anywhere from two to eight hours a day — testing, building, or hanging decorations. I made a large Wishing Well to hold toys for the toy drive we became a part of this year.
Q: How many strings of lights are involved?
A: There is somewhere around a total of 200 light strands around the house. If I had to guess, I would say there are approximately 20,000 lights in the display.
Q: How much does your electric bill spike in December?
A: The majority of my lights are LEDs. Depending on the length of the season, last year I saw my bill go up about $200 from a normal cycle.
Q: What do your neighbors think of your display?
A: My neighbors and neighborhood love our display. We have approximately 20 people waiting for us to come home on Thanksgiving to light the lights for the first time.
This is our first year accepting toys for charity. We became affiliated with Toy Express Children's Charity this year. Toy Express is in its 30th year and served roughly 2,500 underprivileged kids in the DuPage County area with new toys for Christmas last year.
Families are always stopping by and dropping off toys in our Wishing Well for donations. I get messages to our Facebook page (Fillipp Family Exterior Illuminations) saying how families come by every year to share the experience with their kids.
I do enjoy walking families through the lights and answering any questions the parents or the kids have.