Community Corner

Ask the Patch Pro: Lighting Up the Holiday Season

Time to deck the halls and the house. Ask our Patch Pro advice on creating a great holiday lighting display.

Despite facing the challenges of having Parkinson's disease, Plymouth resident Mike Justak each year puts on a great holiday lighting display—complete with music and much more.

For the past three years the display has gotten bigger and better. Justak works on it for almost a year beforehand.

This year's display has 40,000 LED lights and now five more homes in the neighborhood are involved. A 17-foot tree is part of the display, as well as a 25-foot flowering crab wrapped in 4,000 LED lights. You can listen to Justak's own radio station take in the musical and light display each winter in Plymouth.

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Justak does the work to raise awareness of Parkinson's disease as the lighting display brings hundreds to his curbside every holiday season. He faces physical difficulties with having Parkinson's getting the display together and much of what he's learned in creating it each year is learned by trial and error.

His advice for beginners: "start small and grow," he said.

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"Leave plenty of time to sequence," Justak said. "To coordinate one song it could take three to five six-hour days to complete."

Justak's home lighting display is called PD Shimmers. It is located at 4320 Ithaca Lane North in Plymouth and kicks off Monday, Nov. 26, and can be viewed from 5 to 10 p.m. each night until Christmas. If you can't make it there you can view the live stream during the hours of operation each evening on the website.

Got a question for Justak about creating a holiday lighting display whether big or small? Ask in the comment section below and he will respond as soon as possible.


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