Manassas home listed on holiday lights tour site

By Amanda Stewart

Published: November 30, 2008

In December, it’s hard to miss the Wambold family’s house.

The town house, at 10218 Magnolia Grove Drive in Manassas, has the biggest Christmas light display in the neighborhood.

James Wambold said he’s still putting the finishing touches on this year’s Christmas display, but he estimates that there are already 20,000 lights adorning the front, side and back of the house.

“Wow, that’s a lot,” his 6-year-old son, Daniel, said.

“Yeah, it is,” Wambold agreed with a smile.

Wambold said he’s been lighting up the night with his Christmas display for about five years now.

“It started out small. We just liked putting out lights for ourselves,” Wambold said of himself and his wife, Brenda.

But over the years, and with the addition of sons Daniel and Brandon, 4, the display got bigger.

“When we had the kids, they liked it, so we did more. And then I started looking online for ideas, and it just kind of grew from there,” Wambold said.

Each year the display has grown a little, he said. Last year, it featured about 15,000 lights. This year Wambold added about 5,000 more, and is adding music to some of the computerized displays, he said.

The Wambolds’ house is featured at tackylighttour.com, a Web site that maps out the biggest and brightest Christmas light displays in several states.

Theirs is the only house listed in Manassas so far. Most of the houses featured on the site are in Richmond, where Web site founder Matt Burgess lived for eight years.

The Wambolds’ display is not quite as over-the-top as the houses deemed over-decorated enough to win the Web site’s “Tacky Awards,” but it does attract attention, Wambold said.

“We do have people stop by and say they like the lights,” he said.

Some of his biggest fans are the out-of-town relatives of his neighbors’ who stop by every year, Wambold said.

“They’ll come by and say they look forward to seeing our house every year,” he said. “It’s just a lot of fun.”

This year the Wambolds’ display includes three large lighted trees hanging on the side of the town house, which is an end unit. In the side yard, there’s a lighted nativity scene. Nearby there’s an inflatable Santa Claus and snowman and icicle lights outline the fence surrounding their back yard.

Lights cover a good portion of the front of the house and the front yard, and a lighted candy cane path leads visitors up to the front door.

Most of the lights are controlled by computer, he said.

The lights can be seen from Hastings Drive as well as on Magnolia Grove Drive.

Wambold said he started putting up the lights around Veterans Day this year and is just about done.

Decorating the house is usually a two-week process to put up the lights.

“It will go a little faster when the boys are old enough to help,” Wambold said of his sons.

Daniel said he helped his dad a little bit this year.

“It’s fun. I like putting up the lights,” he said.

The Wambolds keep their Christmas lights on from about 5 to 10 p.m. on weeknights and until 11 p.m. on the weekends.

The lights will be on from now until the New Year, he said.

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.