Ascension Parish's own holiday light show
GONZALES – When the sun goes down, one Ascension Parish neighborhood in particular lights up the night with thousands of flashing Christmas lights.
The Raposo Family has a tradition to decorate their house almost every year. Their decorations are not your average decorations, they are what can only be described as a festive holiday spectacle.
Homeowner Scott Raposo said he started the popular light show five years ago when he was introduced to computerized lighting technology.
“I have always done Christmas lights,” Raposo said. “It was five years ago that I went computerized and started to get into commercial-grade lights.”
With nearly 74,000 lights, the house on Mill Grove Drive lights up the neighborhood, and brings in dozens of spectators nightly, with even more on the weekends. Raposo estimated that during the week, there are anywhere from 50 to 100 cars nightly, and on the weekends, hundreds.
The process to decorate the house and yard takes roughly three weeks. With the help of his wife and three young children, the family starts decorating for the Christmas season immediately after Halloween, with the first lighting on Thanksgiving night, weather permitting. He said he even has help from some of his neighbors.
One special thing the family added to their holiday show a few years ago was the addition of a St. Jude donation box, as a little girl from the neighborhood was battling cancer at the time.
“Someone implanted the idea in my mind that we have all these people coming out let’s just put a box with a little sign to tell people donate if they want to,” Raposo said. “We started dong it and people are wonderful. Everyday there's donations and by the end of the season there's a pretty good bit that we give to St. Jude.”
He added that he likes to go out and meet the people who come to see the show, and even meets some of the St. Jude kids as well.
“Every year we always meet a few kids who either are being treated or have been treated by St. Jude, and sometimes we meet parents of children who didn’t make it. It can be pretty emotional out there and overwhelming at times.
It's a neat, wonderful thing and we love being a part of it.”
The Raposo’s light show can be seen at 13124 Mill Grove Drive, Gonzales through Jan. 2. Sunday through Thursday the lights will be on from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. If it is raining, or has recently rained, the lights will not be on, due to the rain affecting the equipment. As a reminder, everyone should either dim their headlights or turn them off so that everyone can see the show better.
