How One Man's Amazing Christmas Lights Have Spread Joy for 30 Years | Short Film Showcase

[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]

My name is Bruce Mertz, and the people around here call me Mr. Christmas. This is my 31st year of putting up the lights, and I've been living here since 1977. Every year, I start setting up at the end of August. It takes me about three months. I just go from one thing to another thing because I know if I just do one thing a day, I'm gonna get it done.

Most of the commercial lights fade out over time, so I've developed my own paint that does not fade. The lights that I use on have lasted something like 12, 13 years without ever fading. I got to heat up the insulation so it's pliable, right now it kind of sticks. I started with the string of lights around the house. My neighbor across the street told me that when I moved in here, he got to add something new every year. You know, that's what we do around here.

So over the years, I've added something every year, and he hasn't had anything. He still has the same string of full C9 bulbs from 40 years ago. Well, he sits in the house, looks at this picture window at this beautiful light display across the street, so he knows how to work things.

You want me to brush it on? Oh, you want to see this girl do a trick? Sure, I'll show you a trick. Maybe she won't do it anymore. Let me see, okay, here we are. Is that our truck? All right, Trixie.

I first met Bruce at the AJ's Born Grill. I used to play liar's dice down there, and the guy liked to play liar's dice. So, I met him while playing liar's dice. Sitting next to Mr. Christmas is a good spot; I get lots of hugs.

[Music]

About that, buddy, the first night of the tournament is on Thanksgiving night. It's a happy holiday. Christmas and Happy Holiday New Year's Eve is a happy holiday, so I go on to the 2nd of January. Here we go.

When I start the lights at night, I have the CD with the national anthem, I mean the God Bless America. So at 2 minutes and 10 seconds before 6 o'clock, I put on the music.

[Music]

And then, as applause dies down, I've got all my timers. I got 14 timers, all supposed to kill at the same time. When I go in, I have a CD with all banjos playing Christmas time tunes, and that's the start of the evening.

[Music]
[Applause]

And so, I go out about every 15 to 20 minutes, greet them, leave for the evening. I'll hand off photographs to them every season. Now, for the last four or five years, I've gone through about four thousand photos. Well, they usually ask about three questions that I put the answers to on a little label put on the back of a photograph. What is it? How many lights do you have? And I said 51,000. Although this would take you to put them up; this is three months. And what's your PGD built in? About $700.

[Music]
[Music]
[Music]

Actually, I have Antonio had a lot of fun watching people on the red carpet. Especially kids. Yeah, they have chasing the lights back and forth, walking the red carpet, or else are rolling down the hill. It's hilarious.

Did you say, "Can I come inside?" I said, "There's nothing inside." I mean, there's nothing. That's just, you know, my cat, that's all. There’s my tip, my cap by Trixie.

[Music]
[Music]
[Music]

His neighbors calling Mr. Christmas, and every night at 6:00 p.m. sharp, he flips the switch. His mind is so active, it is impossible for him to stop working. People in Ashman ask, "What could work? Where do you buy all this stuff?" I say, "You can't buy this; I build it all myself."

I wish you a Merry Christmas. I wish you a Merry Christmas. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

[Music]

This is a sequencer I bought for $2 at a yard sale in 1978. These relays here are mounted onto fry pans that I bought from Kmart, and I'm using them for a heat sink. There are 20 micro switches on here; each one of these little plastic plugs intercepts a switch. I've got a program so that the lights chase around the house and groups within blocks of a...

[Music]
[Music]

I never got into lights until just a new girl. I grew up in South Dakota. I was the youngest of ten. We didn't have electricity then on a farm, and I never saw any electric lights or anything like that. We were not necessarily that rich, you know. And so, presents were kind of few and far between during Christmas.

I have a joke about South Dakota: South Dakota is either Neverland or if you ever believed, you know, we come back. I finally left to join the Air Force—my first experience with lights. Clever lights. If someone came along and took their hand like that and dragged all the wires all the way, I wouldn't know what to do because I have no circuit design here. It's all done in my head turns, add arms and a jury-rig on my heart. If I keep my hands off—oh, he's okay.

[Music]

Nellie was very interested in Christmas. She loved Christmas. Used to go to the church and tell Christmas stories; she was so good at it when she had the kids in tears. She described everything, you know. But anyway, we liked when we could be married. Ten years passed; it was a childhood cancer that she had acquired, but it was caught as an adult. She, well, she died by 18.

My sector, she got the disease, and I continued to go to work. I'm retired from civil service in '94. I realized I had a life to live, and I thought, "What am I gonna do?" I said, "Well, the best thing I can do is just do lights, you know, just keep on doing lights." You know, that way kept me busy but also allowed me to be able to entertain people and have them become happy, which in turn made me happy.

[Music]

We had a very up-and-down emotional day last Monday. I was sitting in the garage here, and my friend Randy was sitting right over here next to me. I'm looking out the door across the street, and I could see the garbage truck coming around the corner—a big garbage truck going about 45 miles an hour, way fast, and speeding—this big flash of brown went up in the air like that and killed a cat.

I said, "Randy, go see that. That's Trixie! I can't—I can't face it!" To me. And I came back to the garage. I said to Bruce, "I'm sorry." So, I went over there and picked up the cat, stood her up, and brought her back, put her in the backyard. He took turns digging a hole, cut a sheet, and put Trixie in it. We both had tears when I was doing this.

So he lowered her in the hole, put the sheet over the top of it. So I went back out here in the garage and sat down, tears still streaming down my face, and Randy was in tears, streaming down too. And all of a sudden, I look over, and Trixie walks in! "There’s Trixie!" Oh my god, there's Trixie! I thought I was seeing a ghost!

He's all, "Well, you hollered out loud, and all that noise came, and when she just took off, right?" We couldn't find her again. I thought that was unbelievable! I don't believe that happened! Randy said I was looking for eyes. That's just an apparition; you didn't see it.

So then, he finally found her, caught her, and then I got to thinking, "Oh, my neighbor's cat looks just like Trixie." But when I went out to pick up Trixie, it didn't have any thoughts that would be somebody else's cat, and I said, "Frank, I said, 'Why don't you sit down?'" They're not dumb. I said, "You know, I think that your cat is buried in the backyard here."

He's like, "I don't know how I'm gonna tell my wife." I said, "Well, good luck." I said, "I'm sorry. I'll tell you one thing, you won't have to do too much grieving because we did all the grieving for you."

[Music]

Hi, Santa! All right, see you next year! Hope you don’t war out your arms waving at enough people. There we go! Their goal’s to do it—stay on, so you gotta go in and turn rush this stuff off. Leave up a little bit, okay?

Okay, if you like.

[Music]
[Laughter]
[Music]

Trixie, yeah! Oh yeah, that's when the lights go off, and it's rather dismal, you know? I mean, I'm—yeah, like I say, where did all the fun go, you know? I mean, and once I get back in, the idea that I got to take this stuff down, well then, it's just a normal part of the cycle of Christmas, New Year's, Easter.

[Music]
[Music]
[Music]