2016

Before the season even kicked off we were pleasantly surprised to receive a congratulatory letter from the Governor of New York State – Andrew Cuomo!!! It was very exciting and we were very appreciative of him taking the time to acknowledge our light display.

We started the shows on 11/25th and dedicated the display to my brother John. John was the oldest child in my family and we had just lost him a few months earlier. He had visited us multiple times when the display was running and was always generous in the donations he made to various charities. The donations we collected that first Friday and Saturday were donated to several charities that support Navy Seal Veterans. The previous year, at John's request, we had collected for them so I chose to continue to honor him by doing this. John was a veteran of the United States Marine Corp, and proud of it.

We crossed new territory in 2016 – all three kids were away in college! Hard to imagine how fast those years went by, since Emily was born and the display began with 600 lights…

Back in 2009, one of the new elements we added was a line of 8 leaping circles. This was back when LED's were just starting to take over, but before RGB had become available. RGB means you can control the lights to be any color. Back at this point, if we wanted multiple colors on something, we had to add each color bulb. Like the squares we added in 2010 – they had 4 colors. Anyway, the circles looked 'aged', and we finally made the decision to replace them, or rather move them, so that we could add a new RGB element. We settled on 6 RGB snowflakes, and wow – they just looked magnificent.

We were honored to be included in a national video production by Popsugar, and sponsored by Hilton Garden Inn. And we got to anchor! See the video here.

On Dec 15th, for the 2nd consecutive year, we were on the front page of the Poughkeepsie Journal

We had great charitable events for the Children's Home of Poughkeepsie, Ty Lois Campbell Foundations, Family Services of Dutchess County and The Ryan McElroy Foundation. It's great to be a vehicle for the community to help these fine organizations dedicated to children. In total for these organizations and the Union Vale Fire Department – who we can never thank enough!, we raised $46,341 in 2016 bringing our 6 year total to $269,061!! As always, thanks so much to those who contribute – it means a lot to us, as well as the people you are benefiting.

We had 3 marriage proposals in 2016, bringing the total we know of to 12!!!