'I like lots of colour': meet Whitehorse's Christmas light king

For Marc Champagne of Whitehorse, there are two seasons in the year — Christmas light season, and the other one.

Drive through the city's Valleyview neighbourhood, and you can't miss Champagne's house. It's lit up like... well, like a Christmas tree. 

"You know we live in a dark place — you know, November, December, there's not a lot of sunlight," he said.

"It's not always the easiest of months, so just having the house lit up like this, I really enjoy coming home from work."

Every year, he spends hours and hours decorating his duplex. He says he starts to "pick away" at it in mid-November, and aims to have everything lit up by the beginning of December.

He couldn't tell you exactly how many lights he uses, but he concedes that it's "several thousand."

"I get asked that question all the time, and I honestly don't know. I should one day actually do a count, or I'll assign that to one of my boys," he laughed.

He's got more than simple strings of lights. There are glowing lollipops, candy canes, reindeer and a rooftop Santa. There's also a glowing star perched atop a tall spruce tree — easily installed years ago, but trickier now that the tree towers over him.

"Every year gets a little scarier," he said. "I got a really long ladder and I get my boys to hold onto it."

Childhood memories 

Champagne traces his obsession to childhood, when his father would decorate their house.

"The room I was in faced out the front of the house, and through kind of the end of November into December, I always had Christmas lights lighting up my room at night. And I think that's probably where it started."

And none of this austere monochrome lighting for Champagne.

"I like lots of colour, and I really like the sparkly candy canes hung over the doorway," he says.

He says his neighbour in the other side of his duplex is an "enthusiastic supporter" of Champagne's Christmas spirit, and even supplies some of the power.

The energy consumption is not even that bad, Champagne insists.

"I am pretty careful, like I've switched pretty much all of my lights are LED now so they use a lot less electricity than the old lights," he says.

He also uses a timer so they're only on for a few hours in the evening. 

"I do have one neighbour who jokes about the light keeping him up at night. But he's only joking — they actually turn off before he goes to sleep."

Champagne says he keeps his lights up into January, but never has a set date to pull the plug.

"I think when the days start getting a bit longer," he said. "I keep them on until it feels like the sun's coming back and spring is on its way."