If you’re driving on Billings Crescent in Newmarket, it is impossible to miss Luis Reis’ Christmas decorations. The 83-year-old personally covers his house in thousands of lights every holiday season.
Reis has lived at 253 Billings Cres. for about 30 years and every year the display gets bigger and bigger.
“He just loves it, it’s his pride and joy,” said Jeannette Paz Homem, Reis’ granddaughter, who was there to help translate for him as he speaks Portuguese.
His favourite decoration is the nativity scene, which was a staple holiday set-up in Portugal.
Christmas, or Natale in Portuguese, has always been his favourite holiday, he said.
“It’s a happy time of year. I came from a poor family with eight or nine kids. It was that time of year you got a little something extra. I would find oranges in my shoes as a kid,” he said.
Now it is a time for the whole family to get together, which always happens at Reis’ house. Paz Homem called it the holiday hub for their family.
“My family, on Christmas, everybody gets together inside,” Reis said of his house.
Viewing his home has become a holiday tradition for many Newmarket residents, many of whom grew up seeing all the lights and now bring their own kids to see them, too.
Last year, they had more traffic coming by than ever before. Paz Homem believes the pandemic contributed to that.
“People are looking for happiness, they’re looking for something that brings joy and Christmas is typically one of those things,” she said. “And they’re looking for things to do, like you can’t do your usual things. ‘What can we do to bring joy?’”
As an added element, they decided last year to collect donations for the Newmarket Food Pantry and they were overwhelmed by the response.
“Last year we decided if everybody’s coming why not, and it was a ton of food,” Paz Homem said.
They set out the donation bin again and already items have been collected.
“The community really embraced it,” she said.
This year, Reis started turning on the lights for the weekends in November and throughout December they are turned on every night from 5 to 11 p.m. and left on a bit later the week leading up to Christmas.
