Hate taking down your holiday lights? Imagine taking down those big displays in the suburbs

What goes up must come down.

It's true with, well, everything that is subject to the laws of gravity. And also Christmas lights.

While braving the cold and snow to make things "unfestive" at your home may seem like a thankless task, it could be worse.

Or at least a lot more time-consuming.

Just ask the folks behind some of the area's top holiday lights attractions, including "Illumination" at The Morton Arboretum, "Holiday in the Park Lights!" at Six Flags Great America, and Aurora's Festival of Lights.

John Featherstone, who designs the lighting for the "Illumination" display at the arboretum in Lisle, says it takes about half the time to take down the lights that it took to put them up.

That might mean a couple of hours to you. It means five thousand staff hours at the arboretum.

"Plus or minus a blizzard or two," he said. "The weather is just part of the adventure."

The milelong trek through the trees features more than 1,600 lighting devices. It took several teams roughly 10,000 hours to install.

While some holiday light displays boast millions of bulbs, "Illumination" relies on LED projections with miles of cabling, some of which have to stay in place until the spring thaw.

"Illumination" runs until Saturday. Tickets are still available for Thursday and Friday night, but the closing night is already sold out.

Even with different equipment, the challenges of taking down the display aren't that dissimilar from doing it at home, Featherstone said.

Crews follow a few fundamentals when taking down displays. The first is to be careful with the environment in which they are doing the work.

"We're working in basically a tree museum," Featherstone said. "People should be mindful of that at home as well. Any damage you do isn't going to begin to heal until spring."

He said another important step is to be careful with the equipment and put them away in a way you would hope to find them next time.

While it might be tempting at home when your hands are frozen to dump everything in a plastic bin in the garage, "you're gonna be hating life when you come back to that next year," Featherstone said.

At Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, more than 3 million lights with dozens of installations brighten the nights for their "Holiday in the Park Lights!" show. Most of the setup begins once Fright Fest ends after Halloween.

Caitlin Kepple, communications and marketing manager, said it could take a group of about 30 people about 2½ months, depending on weather, to get it all down.

"It's an amazing undertaking," she said. "It's all hands on deck."

They use multiple forklifts and man lifts to get everything stored away.

"I'm always amazed by the ingenuity of our entertainment team to organize all the various installations and props," Kepple said.

The drive-through version of "Holiday in the Park Lights!" closes on Sunday.

In Aurora, an experienced team of volunteers has made a science of taking down the annual light display at Phillips Park.

Pam Bellm of the Rotary Club of Aurora organizes 24 teams of volunteers to both put up and take down their 381 separate displays, some of which have as many as 5,000 lights.

Roughly 37,000 cars enjoyed a show that took more than 150 volunteers just eight hours to install. It only took them five hours to tear it all down and pack it away on the Monday after Christmas.

"We used to be in there for days, but now our teams are so experienced and know exactly what they need to do," Bellm said. "Everybody helps everybody out."