The Greatest Michiana Light Fight: Phillips' Family Christmas Wonderland

HOWE, Ind. --- A family near LaGrange County has transformed their backyard into a Christmas wonderland.

Santa Claus is no stranger to the Phillips Family, who lives in a red and green home in Howe. For Joshua Phillips, his wife, Laura, and their five children Christmas is every day.

Now, they’re sharing their personal North Pole with the community. With more than 10,000 lights, 45 inflatables, including 32 Santa Clauses, they’ve created a holiday walkthrough on their almost two acres of land.

“Wow, wow, I walk around the back yard and go wow,” said Joshua Phillips, co-creator of the Phillips Family Christmas Wonderland.

For the second year, the Phillips family believes they’ve really outdone themselves.

“We have probably twice as much stuff as we did last year,” Phillips said.

This year they created a make shift movie theatre, where they show Christmas favorites like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Laura Phillips said her favorite addition is the musical light show.

Thousands of lights that have been programmed to dance along with songs played from their home. She said she got most of her ideas online and from Pinterest.

“A lot of thinking what can I let my husband pull off,” Phillips said. “Will he tolerate this idea?”

Most of these ideas required their five children, McKenzie, Kylie, Luke, Faith, and Christian, who even roped their friends from the neighborhood to help their family.

“One night, we had, I think 17 kids spend the night,” said Joshua Phillips.

The group worked for months, including the weekends, and even during bad weather.

“It felt like forever until this happened,” said McKenzie Rood, Laura’s daughter.

Joshua Phillips said the walk through was a huge group effort and is proud of everyone involved.

“I think they’re really cool,” Rood said. “My mom and step-dad worked really hard on them.”

A job well done, for everyone to enjoy Joshua Phillips said. In order to celebrate Christmas, and for his kids, a job that was a little stressful that turned into a learning experience.

“I learned that stuff may be really hard but when you do it and see everybody enjoy it it’s really worth it,” said Rood.