Scott Bamber's Christmas Spectacular

Written by Brian Bushard

Photography by Kit Noble

For 10 months out of the year, it’s just another cedar-shingled house with a green lawn. But for the months of November and December, it’s not only the most recognizable house on the island, it’s one of Nantucket’s biggest attractions. For the past 29 years, Scott Bamber has been decorating his house with so many Christmas lights it puts even Clark Griswold to shame. He even puts a Grinch decoration on his neighbor’s yard, not out of spite but because his neighbor’s daughter likes it.

Make no mistake, this is no simple operation, costing thousands of dollars and requiring weeks of labor. While Bamber might sound like a Grinch himself lamenting about the work that goes into it, his heart grows three sizes when he sees the line of kids outside his house on Friendship Lane to catch the light show. “It’s another cost, it adds up and I’m out here every day in the freezing cold,” he said. “But I do it for the kids.”

Christmas comes early at Bamber’s house, where on November 1 of every year, he’s outside with a crew of family, friends and volunteers stringing over a mile of lights around his fence, the outline of his house, the two-bay garage, flagpole and every bush and tree in his yard. For the next four weeks, he's putting up roughly 50 blow-up lights, five Christmas trees, a functional mini train and Santa’s team of reindeer.

Bamber’s collection of Christmas decorations now includes a staggering 500 individual blow-ups. He stores most of the decorations in a container offsite, which when full, weighs over 12,000 pounds—the train engine alone weighs 600 pounds. Setting them up in the yard doesn’t only take a crew; Bamber brings in a 65-foot lift, three 250-foot extension cords, four underground wires, five three-way cords and two 200-amppower banks—everything but a partridge in a pear tree.

Every year is different. Most years, the decorations are tied to different Christmas themes, which in past years have included candy and snow. Sometimes, the display centers around a recent movie. The year Disney’s “Frozen” came out was a big year in the world of Christmas decorations, Bamber said. “We don’t just add one, we add dozens [of decorations] every year,” he said. “They started out at four-feet high, and then eight feet, and now we have a 12-foot Santa and an 18-foot Grinch. The deer are nine feet tall.”

In 29 years of decorating his house, Bamber has been shocked, has stumbled and one time he even fell off his roof while stringing lights around the frame of his house. All said, between the half pallet of string lights, some 10,000-12,000 candy canes and the spike in his electric bill, Bamber is looking at $10,000 per year.

With those costs rising, Bamber says this is his last year decorating his house, though he's been saying that for several years. “It’s a lot of work but it’s fun. I like doing it and I like doing it for the kids. I want to stop but I can’t. My son just had a baby and I’m a grandfather. Everybody says to me, ‘You can’t give up, we’ll help you.’” One person who has been helping Bamber for years is his friend Tammy King, who shows up with a crew of volunteers to install the lights and conceive a vision for each year’s display. “Even though he sounds like the Grinch, his heart is big,” King said.