WILLOUGHBY, Ohio — A Willoughby family calls it a dream come true.
They not only appeared in the season premiere of ABC’s hit decorating competition series, "The Great Christmas Light Fight" on Thursday night, but they also won.
The holiday display at the Lunar Family’s home at 38769 Bell Road in Willoughby was among three American households competing for $50,000 in the episode.
Brad Lunar said he knew he wanted to be on the show from episode one, season one.
Twelve years later, his dream has come true.
“I always thought it was cool,” he said.
It's a childhood passion, but one he said he had to work hard to learn.
Brad is in corporate sales and Candice Lunar is in marketing.
The couple, who have two daughters, Shannan, 25 and Kylie, 24, said they watched a lot of how-to videos and received a lot of guidance from more advanced lighting enthusiasts. Brad said he now loves paying back the knowledge and helping others coming up in the craft.
The Lunar Family Lights held their first big holiday display in 2021.
“We did about 46,000 lights the first year,” said Brad.
Now, they’re up to more than a million lights, and the animated synchronized light show takes more than 3,000 hours of work a year to put together.
The couple said they filmed their episode of "The Great Christmas Light Fight" in November 2024.
“We’re really, really blessed to have done it,” said Candice. “It was an amazing experience. The cast and crew are now part of the family!”
They said it was two days of filming.
“We don’t remember a thing because I slept about 15 hours the week prior,” said Brad. “The minute they said, ‘Cut,’ we went inside and literally passed out!”
They said you don’t get much warning when they’re coming to film, and then there are no do-overs. You have to nail it.
“I was uploading the sequences for the show and trying to fix some things and re-uploading stuff literally seven minutes before the judges came out,” said Brad.
The hard work paid off. A month after filming, they found out they won; a secret they had to keep private until now.
“Surreal, surreal,” they said about seeing it all play out on national TV. “Like, insane actually!”
They kept their award statue at Candice’s parents’ home, just down the street.
Many neighbors appeared in the episode, providing help and support for the family.
“My neighbors have been beyond awesome,” said Brad.
Family and friends are what they say this is all about.
While being named champions of ‘The Great Christmas Light Fight’ is wonderful, they said sharing the holiday is the true gift.
“It’s all the smiles and the laughter, the singing, the dancing, and the people saying that this is what they look forward to every year,” said Brad.
They said upwards of 1,500 cars a night can pack their street once their display opens.
The display opens Friday, Dec. 5, and the hours of operation are Thursday through Saturday, 6-9:30 p.m. and Sundays, 6-9 p.m.
Every year, the Lunar Family Lights serves as a fundraiser for a nonprofit that provides children with critical illnesses and their families free vacations in Florida. Donations can be made online or through a QR code you’ll find at the display.
Katie Ussin is the Lake County and We Follow Through anchor at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @KatieUssin, on Facebook KatieUssin, Instagram Katie_Ussin_wews or email her at Katie.Ussin@wews.com.
