When a neighbour popped round to admire the Christmas decorations a son put up for his mum they loved them so much he ended up decking out the whole street.
Festive cheer champion Dean Astbury and his friend Andy Lewis have now gone on to fit more 52 homes on the road in Liverpool with Yuletide lights and fittings.
Mr Astbury, 32, whose mum lives on Gribble Road, in the Fazakerley area, helped decorate their family home with LED lights for Christmas in the middle of November.
But it didn’t take neighbours long to start knocking on the door to ask where they got the lights from and if somebody would be able to help them transform their own homes.
Mr Astbury told the Liverpool Echo: “We just started on our own house only to get knocks on the door from our neighbours asking where the lights were from and if we would help them out. So we said yes.
“Now we have done 52 houses, with 11 more to do over the next week. It’s taken a fair few weeks as we work full time, but the street looks really cool.
“It’s really nice because everybody has come together like a little community and the street looks boss. The atmosphere is great with everybody out chatting in the street and the kids love it.
“We haven’t asked for any money or done it for charity, but I think we’ll do it again for sure. You never know, next year we might have a light switch-on.”
Christmas lights became popular when electrification began to spread in the UK in the 1880s.
Queen Victoria was one of the first people in the world to decorate her Christmas tree with lights and the tradition soon spread through emigration to North America and Australia.
Britain’s oldest Christmas fairy lights are believed to be 54 years old and have reportedly never had a bulb replaced. The lights bought for just £3 from Woolworths by Vina Shaddick in 1969 are continuing to burn brightly on a tree at the home of her son Ross-Farr-Semmems, 43.
