Christmas Lights Labor of Love for Caledonia Man

Three Caledonia houses have been entered in Patch’s Deck the House competition.

Featuring music, lights, talking trees and jingling bells, the entries are stunning.

There’s still time to see the decorations in person or online and vote for your favorite.

You can vote once a day per entry. The house with the highest number of votes from Caledonia will move on to the judging round—and potentially become a regional winner. Voting ends Sunday, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m.

Regional winners of the contest will receive $500 to help offset their utility bills and $100,000 will be donated to the national winner’s public school district.

For Mike Pikula, over-the-top decorating for Christmas is a long-time hobby. He moved to Caledonia in 2009 and told the neighbors that he and his wife would be quiet neighbors, except for Christmas time.

“I kind of warned them it would be bright around here,” he said.

The neighbors have welcomed his display, which now features lights and Christmas songs in sync and Douglas Fir, a singing and narrating tree. The show runs for just over an hour but will be shorter on the weekends to ease possible congestion.

“They all love it. It brings some cheeriness to the subdivision,” he said. One neighbor even uses his decorations as a landmark when giving out directions.

Putting up the decorations is the short part of the project. Pikula said he spends the majority of his time programming the lights to the songs. To do so, he has to play the songs over and over again, which drives his wife Debbie crazy. In all, the display takes Pikula about 100 to 150 hours leading up to Christmas.

Setting up the display takes about eight days but it only takes a couple to take them down.

“I wish it would go up as quickly as it comes down,” he said.

Their Christmas light display will be up until Jan. 4 this year.