Hodgson Family Lights: The most Christmassy house and garden in Cross Gates
Dom and Heather Hodgson discuss their Christmas light experience in Cross Gates which supports Martin House Children’s Hospice.
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00:00 (wind blowing)
00:02 - Halloween was our busiest Halloween we've ever had.
00:11 Thousands of people,
00:12 thousands of packets of Haribo given away,
00:14 and we raised over a thousand pounds in less than a week.
00:17 It was absolutely incredible.
00:19 We're really happy with it.
00:20 The day that Halloween finishes,
00:22 we switch it off and then we start unplugging
00:24 and start bringing out some of the Christmas stuff.
00:26 So it just doesn't end.
00:28 We don't really leave the house until January,
00:31 and then we go and have a nice meal.
00:33 - We've got a few new things this year.
00:35 The reindeer, the Santa,
00:37 the key piece I think over there is the gingerbread house,
00:39 which we're really happy with.
00:42 It looks brilliant.
00:44 We're trying out some new things.
00:45 Obviously we don't work on TV,
00:46 but we've got some smells going around.
00:49 Yeah.
00:50 - We've got some new interactive features,
00:51 which aren't live today,
00:53 but the way that our show works
00:54 is we add something every day.
00:55 One of our friends who visits every day
00:57 has requested a train.
00:59 So we've tried to do that.
00:59 We've got the selfie elf,
01:01 which you can take a picture with,
01:02 put your head through and change the color of his jacket.
01:05 And yeah, so there's just a lot of stuff we've added
01:08 and moved around.
01:09 - We're gonna be adding some new songs as well.
01:11 We've got 23 on the list at the moment,
01:14 and that's gonna keep growing.
01:15 Each one of these little lights is programmable.
01:18 What we do is we sit at the computer.
01:20 Sometimes we have to listen to the songs
01:22 really, really slowly to get the mouth movements
01:24 just right on the thing.
01:25 We try and design it around the beats of the music
01:27 and the mouth movements and everything like that
01:29 and drum beats and things.
01:30 And it is like everything is synchronized in our main show.
01:33 And then that can be a little bit overwhelming for some.
01:36 So that's why we have our sensory sessions.
01:38 We're bringing them back this year.
01:39 So there'll be a few times a week before the show.
01:41 And that's when things are a lot quieter like this,
01:44 but we're just with some smooth background music,
01:45 just so you can think.
01:46 We're about, what would you say?
01:48 I think it's-
01:48 - 46,000, did you say?
01:49 - About 46,000 individually programmable lights.
01:52 So each one is programmable, like Heather said.
01:55 We call them pixels, but to people, they're just lights.
01:58 And yeah, honestly, I've not plugged it
02:00 into a wattage calculator.
02:02 I'm afraid to, but all I know is it does add a little bit
02:05 to the electric, but like I say, it's a hobby.
02:07 That's the cost of doing business.
02:09 And we genuinely spend more on Haribo.
02:12 We try and work with the neighbors quite a lot
02:14 to make sure that traffic doesn't build up.
02:15 We run them for extended hours to make sure that people
02:18 can just come in and out.
02:19 And we have a steady flow, which I think works really well.
02:22 We do it for one reason and well, two reasons.
02:25 One is to give something everybody to enjoy,
02:27 but the main reason is to raise money for Martin House.
02:29 Although it's free, people can come and not,
02:32 like we would appreciate any donations.
02:34 And we work with the charity a lot.
02:36 They're coming down in a few days, I think.
02:39 And we're really, really pleased
02:41 with our relationship with them.
02:42 - Thank you to everybody for liking, sharing.
02:45 I think we've already started planning 2024 now, aren't we?
02:47 - Oh, definitely.
02:48 There's some plans there.
02:49 You walk around, you go, we could do this, we could do that.
02:51 I would be remiss if I didn't say that Scarlett
02:54 would be here to take all the credit if she was.
02:57 But she's with the grandparents at the moment,
02:59 but obviously it's her show and she's done all the work.
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