{"id":225835,"date":"2018-12-17T21:58:43","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T11:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=225835"},"modified":"2020-07-25T12:21:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T02:21:33","slug":"lights-capture-spirit-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2018\/12\/17\/lights-capture-spirit-of-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Lights Capture Spirit Of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This year’s grand prize winners, Veronica and Geoff Hartwig, take a month every year to assemble their enormous Christmas lights display in Kingaroy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

December 17, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the past 15 or 16 years, Kingaroy’s Geoff and Veronica Hartwig have been decorating their home at 97 Ivy Street with Christmas lights.<\/p>\n

They have picked up a couple of small prizes over the years, but this year their hard work really paid off … they have won the $15,000 first prize in the South Burnett’s Christmas Lights competition.<\/p>\n

The couple’s collection of Christmas lights has grown so much it now fills one and a half sheds in their backyard and a bedroom of their house during the off season.<\/p>\n

They’ve lost count of exactly how many lights they own, but estimate it comes to several thousand.<\/p>\n

The family spends most mornings in November putting up the annual display in readiness for the crowds of visitors who begin arriving to view it each December.<\/p>\n

Veronica said the property can play host to more than 100 visitors a night during the festive season.<\/p>\n

“People can get out of their cars and walk through the displays, and Geoff dresses up as Santa and hands out treats to the children,” she said.<\/p>\n

The pair only began entering Council’s Christmas Lights competition in 2009, and have won the Kingaroy urban section several times over the past nine years.<\/p>\n

But Veronica said the couple was surprised to receive a phone call from South Burnett Mayor Keith Campbell on Monday morning to tell them they’d been judged this year’s Grand Prize winners.<\/p>\n

Thanks to major sponsors Hancock Prospecting and the Georgina Hope Foundation, the Hartwigs have won a luxury $15,000 holiday in Singapore.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The holiday – for two adults and two children aged up to 12 years – includes return economy flights from Brisbane to Singapore, five nights\u2019 accommodation at the Shangri-La Hotel with breakfast daily, return private transfers between Singapore Airport and the Shangri-La Hotel, high tea at Raffles and comprehensive travel insurance.<\/p>\n

Geoff said the couple don’t have passports at the moment so this was something they’d look into soon.<\/p>\n

They will be celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary in 2019, which will make the Singapore trip especially memorable.<\/p>\n

Geoff said the couple has steadily upgraded their displays to take advantage of new technology.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They started out with traditional light bulbs, but have now moved to LEDs.<\/p>\n

“The LEDs are much brighter,” Veronica said.<\/p>\n

“And it’s cut our December power bill from an extra $60 to about $30, which is handy, too.”<\/p>\n

The weather has posed a few issues for the couple this year, with some inflatable displays being moved indoors when gusty storms were forecast.<\/p>\n

But the pair are determined the spirit of Christmas will continue twinkling brightly in their front garden every December, although they may have to stop expanding their annual display soon.<\/p>\n

“Really, we’re starting to run out of space to store it all,” Geoff laughed.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/h2>\n

2018 Christmas Lights Competition Winners<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The winners of the other sections of this year’s Christmas Light Competition were announced by the South Burnett Regional Council on Tuesday:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This year’s competition offered $100 first prizes and $50 second prizes for Urban and Rural entries from Blackbutt, Nanango, Kingaroy, Wondai-Proston and Murgon.<\/p>\n

There were no second prize winners in the Murgon Rural and Kingaroy Rural categories this year.<\/p>\n