If you’d like to combine a good deed with good cheer this holiday season, the Festival of Lights at The Hermitage Roanoke Retirement Community allows for both.
The drive-through display includes thousands of lights and is free of charge. Visitors have the option of donating canned goods when they visit on opening night, which is December 3. All donations given support Feeding Southwest VA.
The Hermitage partners with Christmas Decor Roanoke to make this night possible. Their services focus on the design, installation, maintenance and takedown of lights and formations.
While Christmas Decor Roanoke is a business, it is one with altruistic motives. Doug McKeown, the Lighting Manager of Christmas Decor Roanoke, says that management strives to keep staff employed through the off-season and focuses their time and energy on light displays “that benefit the community as a whole.”
The work to create the Festival of Lights experience actually begins well in advance of the holiday season. In February, the lights are taken down from the previous season. Then McKeown meets with Wade Tallant, the director of marketing at The Hermitage Roanoke. They discuss what worked, any difficulties they faced, and plan what to incorporate into the core design for the future.
McKeown and Tallant meet periodically from February until August, and then begin detailed planning in August.
As Christmas draws near, Christmas Decor Roanoke has a crew that installs the displays, runs power and completes the main house lights, then installs ground lights and tree/shrub wrapping. They also have a technician on site for the opening night and maintain the lights throughout the season.
Tallant describes opening night as “a night you don’t want to miss.” He and staff are eagerly anticipating visitors’ reactions to the new displays, including an abominable snowman and Yukon Cornelius with Rudolph. He also explains that the secret behind the luminary magic is a lot of prep work and “projection mapping- the same technology that Walt Disney World uses for projecting images on the Castle.”
Most festival-goers probably don’t think much about how technically complicated such a display is. Despite being so time-consuming, McKeown enjoys it. He says, “Many hours go into designing, installing and maintaining a display of this size, but the benefit for the residents of Hermitage as well as the community makes it all worth the effort. Wade Tallant has an incredible vision to maintain this light display as a free service to the community. It takes many organizations sacrificing profits, time and personnel to make it happen.”
The Hermitage is built in the style of a Georgian Mansion. Being surrounded by twinkling lights and watching images projected on this beautiful piece of architecture is a feeling Tallant describes as “magical.” McKeown similarly describes the experience as “wonder-filled” and feels proud to be part of an organization that “brings joy during what can be a difficult time of year.”
The lights at The Hermitage Roanoke Retirement Community are open from December 3 through New Year’s Day from 6-9pm.
