Every Christmas, grandfather puts together spectacular light display to dazzle granddaughter

published 14 December 2021

When his granddaughter asked him to put up 100 Christmas lights, Keith Mitchell went above and beyond to transform his home and front yard into a brilliant display of holiday cheer.

Mitchell's 6-year-old granddaughter, Samaria Johnson, made her request in 2018. Every year since, Mitchell has made the display bigger, and for the 2021 edition, there are more than 1.5 million lights. "It's all about my granddaughter for me," he told Good Morning America. "Plus, it makes a lot of people happy."

Mitchell lives in Suffolk, Virginia, but people come from out of state to view his decked out house. Hundreds of visitors stop by for a look every night, Mitchell estimates, and once, a man proposed to his girlfriend inside Mitchell's tunnel decoration. It takes about three months to get everything ready — Mitchell's family, friends, and neighbors pitch in to help set up — and he's built an additional tool shed on his property to store all the lights.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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