December 19, 2016
Terrance Leach/for PhillyVoice
Brandon Conner poses with his Christmas village, which has been a tradition in his family since 1985. He buys a new addition every year, and each box is labeled with its purchase date, just as his mother did when he was a kid.
In all likelihood, every Philadelphia neighborhood has one household that takes holiday decorating over the top.
We, at PhillyVoice, stumbled upon one in Fishtown that rises head and shoulders – or should we say brick and mortar – above the rest.
Brandon Conner lives on the 1200 block of East Berks Street, where his rowhome twinkles at night like the lone disco ball twirling from the ceiling of a slowly dispersing nightclub at 2 a.m.
“Don’t tell my wife,” he laughed.
“I would say, with the lights and all, we are up in the $4,000 to $5,000 range.
“I grew up in a family that valued Christmas – not only secularly, but spiritually – and we always decorated the house, and the inside particularly,” he said.
“The outside was always conservatively done, but I am a little wilder than my parents.”
Conner said he spent more than 30 hours on his house. He used roughly 250 feet of extension cord and string lights to pimp out his three-story pad (not counting the roof deck), about 10 garbage bags of tree trimmings, net lights, and eight inflatable figurines, and he uses three automatic timers to keep it all switching on and off at the same time.
Asked if his neighbors started to notice once he got going – or got competitive or even irritated – like Griswold’s own snobby, yuppie neighbors from the movie, Conner said he got mixed reviews.
"Our neighbor's Christmas spirit inspired us to decorate our own house," said Rebecca Massaro, who lives with her husband on the 1200 block of East Susquehanna Ave.
Another neighbor had a different view.
"I drove by every day for a week and saw that [expletive] out there hanging lights. I thought to myself, doesn't that guy have a life?" said a neighbor on the block who asked not to be named for fear of retribution.
Inside his home, Conner has on display a sprawling Christmas village he says was handed down several generations – a Christmas tradition he hopes to pass down to his daughter, Lila, age 2.
“Clark Griswold is my hero,” he said.
“He is truly the last family man, and I have watched that movie every Christmas since it came out…These types of things are the things that my children will remember forever, and continue on with their families, and hopefully for generations to come.”
Think your house rivals this one in terms of decorations? Send us a picture to tips@PhillyVoice.com and we’ll feature yours in a gallery.
