St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church’s 2022 Christmas Light Extravaganza began Saturday, giving visitors a unique experience for the eyes and ears at 3350 N. Delany Road in Waukegan.
Motorists can park in the church’s lot to experience music timed to lights by tuning their radios to 87.9 FM.
The free Christmas Light Extravaganza was launched in 2020 and has become an annual church holiday tradition.
“This is our third year in a row rocking our immense Christmas light display, and it’s grown bigger and bigger,” said the Rev. Colin Cranmer, the church’s pastor.
“We now have over a football field in length of Christmas lights, with over 52 channels of control and over 300,000 individual lights timed to music,” he said. “Members of our church have draped Christmas lights over every bush and tree to make the display as epic as possible.”
This year’s tradition began with an indoor church worship service. A festive, oversized switch was displayed on the pulpit at the altar.
When the service ended, Cranmer immediately brought the switch outside, where Liam Perez, 4, of Salem, Wisconsin, flipped the candy cane switch accompanied by Liam’s grandparent Joanie Ryan of Winthrop Harbor.
Liam and his grandmother attended church service together seated in a front pew.
Ryan said about Liam, “I gave him a hug and I said that, ‘I love that you come to church with me.'”
Outside, in misty, drizzly 36-degree weather, Liam’s magic started the timed light display, which began with a slow fade in of music to wow factor pumped-up effects.
Wayne Voss of Bristol, Wisconsin, a church member, has helped with the extravaganza since the first during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Voss has an electrical engineering degree from the University of Evansville in Southern Indiana. He retired from a Lake Forest firm after a cardboard box packaging industry career as an engineer and production manager.
“Lights in general just make you feel better, so there’s a psychological thing,” he said. “Even as a kid, I had Christmas lights all over the place.”
Voss recalled when his parents would go out for dinner, he would become busy like Santa’s elves.
“They’d come home (from dinner) and have the whole house decorated with every freakin’ candle we had in the place,” Voss recalled with a laugh. “And my Dad would be just shaking his head because he knew he’d have to take it down.”
Free barbecue food truck event fare was provided by sponsor Galloway Senior Living of Wadsworth, coming early next year as a neighbor when the assisted living community opens four blocks from St. Mark’s.
Sean Brittman, Galloway Senior Living director of sales of marketing, said, “It’s extremely important,” to be a good neighbor.
“We’re very fortunate that Pastor Colin allowed us to partner here,” Brittman said.
Brittman’s colleague David Lalowski, director of business development for Vantage Senior Care, said, “Community engagement is very important to us.”
The event beneficiary was Keeping Families Covered, a Waukegan-based organization which provides diapers and basics to families. Attendees could bring diapers and personal hygiene supplies to help fill the donation truck.
Ann Marie Mathis of Wadsworth, founder, launched the nonprofit Keeping Families Covered in 2010. Keeping Families Covered has been located since 2018 across the street from St. Mark’s. This was the first year Keeping Families Covered had an event partnership with the church, Mathis said.
“It’s a nice opportunity,” she said, to “bring families out and get them more involved in giving back to the community.
“The need has definitely increased in Lake County,” Mathis added, indicating clients served include senior citizens who are at or below the poverty level. “COVID magnified gaps in service that everybody knew existed already, and a lot of the nonprofit organizations like us are just working really hard to help fill those gaps”
Referring to the lights display, church member Jill Shepherd of Libertyville said, “I love seeing all the happy and shining faces watching the show.”
Susan Baehr of Antioch said, “My favorite thing is the festive mood among everyone, a spirit of joy and anticipation.”
Genie Durand of Waukegan added, “The music is uplifting.”
For more information: https://www.stmarkslutheran.us.
