PLEASANT GROVE — For the Holdman family, Christmas means 45,000 lights, 200 hours of wrapping and 33,000 watts of electricity.
This is the second year Richard Holdman and his family lit up their house for all to see. But this year they could win something for it, as well as give something for it.
Holdman entered his light display into Kentucky Fried Chicken's Festive Fanatics decorating competition. The winner receives a year's worth of KFC food and their electricity and credit card bills paid for December. The Holdmans are one of 12 semifinalist families in the contest. Individuals can go in and vote for the family they think has the best display.
Not all Utahns responding to a Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll share the Holdmans' fondness for decorating their homes. The poll shows nagging apparently accounts for a third of the outdoor Christmas lights on Utah houses.
To the question "would you forgo decorating your house or yard if someone in your household didn't insist on it," 33 percent of poll respondents who actually decorate their houses answered "yes." Two-thirds of Utahns generally decorate the outside of their houses for the holiday season, the poll shows, but a slightly smaller number said they have decorated or plan to decorate this year.
And only 2 percent of people who decorate their houses or yards describe that effort as "ablaze or all-out." Fifty percent call what they do "minimal." The poll, conducted Dec. 12-15, has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 5 percent.
Holdman's display, which will cost the family about $120 in electricity in December, features the lights programmed to music that can be heard on 99.9 FM, so people can sit in their cars and watch the show. Because the lights flicker and dance to the beat of the music, the electric bill isn't as large as some people would believe, Holdman said.
Holdman started the programming process in July and laid out lights throughout his house and in his back yard to get everything right. His wife and neighbors also help him wind and twist his creation around his home.
"My 4-year-old daughter tries to help, but it doesn't work too good," he said.
After last year's success, the Holdmans decided to promote something good with their dancing display — they're collecting money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
"Last year I just did it as a display, and a lot of people came and I thought it would be neat to help out somebody with the display," Holdman said. So far, they have collected $2,500.
The family's home is at 3183 Millcreek Road. Directions and videos of the display are posted at www.holdman.com. Those who want to vote for the Holdmans to win the KFC contest can do so at www.kfc.com. Voting ends Thursday at 7 p.m. The Deseret Morning News/KSL poll shows that despite their reluctance to hang lights, only 1 percent of people who decorate say they leave their lights on their rain gutters and shrubbery year round. Only 12 percent said they would pay someone else to string lights, and currently only 2 percent pay for this service. About two-thirds of the people who put up the decorations are identified as "husband/adult male," 28 percent are "wife/adult female" and 16 percent are "family member/children."
Peer pressure to match the blinking lights and inflatable snowmen in their neighbors' yards accounts for only 10 percent of all outdoor holiday decorating.
Slightly more than half of those who decorate the outside of their houses do so by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend — generally a full month before Christmas — and 10 percent string their lights before Thanksgiving. Only 5 percent decorate after Dec. 11, and none reported procrastinating past Dec. 20.
Sixty-nine percent of Utahns polled said they drive around their neighborhoods to look at other people's Christmas lights.
E-mail: csmith@desnews.com