By Amy Erikson
REXBURG—The Robinson Family Light Show at 672 Hillside Dr. in Rexburg is having its Second Annual Lighting Ceremony to kick off the holiday season, Nov. 27 at 6:30 p.m.
Dress warmly and arrive a few minutes early to get the most out of this joyful event. How lucky Rexburg is to have this family bringing such a wonderful Christmas spirit to the neighborhood!
Rick Robinson kindly answered my burning questions about his family’s special tradition.
When asked “Why do you do it?” Rick had so many good reasons for putting his all into hosting such an event.
“It brings families and friends together,” he said. “People need something like this to look forward to. I feel like right now more than ever there is so much stress, divide, and frustration in the world that this is a chance to escape from all of that for a few minutes and just have fun. One of my favorite things to hear are the kids cheering inside of the cars as they watch the show. To them this is purely magic! I also do it for the people who are fighting health issues and maybe aren’t healthy enough to participate in very many Christmas activities. This gives them the chance to experience a fun Christmas activity without having to leave their car. We had the senior center bring buses of residents to watch the shows last year and I loved that this was something they could do.”
As one can imagine, loads of work goes into this show going off without a hitch. Rick shared with me that troubleshooting is the hardest part about it.
“The amount of cabling, programming, power supplies, computer boards, etc. it takes to put this show on would probably blow some people’s minds,” he said. “It is intense!”
That’s got nothing on Robinson’s grit and determination to successfully pull off such a complex form of entertainment. Many would be shocked to find out that Rick is mostly the only one of the family currently working on this project. However, because he is first and foremost a loving father, he encourages his 4- and 5-year-olds to be as involved as possible with putting the lights up, though he will usually have to go back and redo what they did.
Months of custom building and light affixing goes into this operation. Rick custom makes most of the props and programs everything so that each prop will display the proper scene.
The theme this year is “Imagination.”
“I want people to take in the magic of this season and truly let the magic of their imagination take over as they watch our shows this year,” Robinson says.
To make this a neat experience for everyone, Robinson expresses, “The only way we can keep doing this is to make as little disturbance as possible to the neighborhood. We do our best to keep traffic extremely orderly, we have people out directing traffic on busy evenings, and we have a very specific traffic pattern marked with cones and signage that we need people to follow. Please try to keep noise down to a minimum.”
Like The Robinson Family Light Show on Facebook to be notified of when the shows will operate, wait times (for busy weekend shows), and other important information pertaining to the show.
Call me a Grinch because learning about this sweet father’s motivation and the hard labor it takes to make others happy made my heart grow three sizes. Please visit this indescribably kind family’s light show this year!
May your days be merry and the Robinson Family Light Show be bright!
See Rexburgcommons.com for more local news and events, and visit our community calendar here.
