The Liverpool house that's sparkling this Christmas with almost 30,000 lights in aid of Alder Hey

A house in Halewood will be dazzling with almost 30,000 lights as it’s transformed into Liverpool Christmas Light Show in aid of Alder Hey Children’s Charity.

Couple Helen and Marty Walsh have been planning their spectacular display in Palmerston Drive for more than a year, since before their 2021 show came to an end.

They’ve spent the past 12 months sourcing and adding new illuminated festive features which will double the number of lights and songs outside their home.

And they’ve even included Sam Ryder’s Spaceman in the seasonal soundtrack as a nod to Liverpool’s upcoming hosting of Eurovision.

The nightly shows, raising money for Alder Hey, will launch on Thursday December 1 at 6pm, with special guests Santa, The Grinch and the Naughty Elf giving out sweets to kids, and they’ll run until December 31 when a special 11.30pm show will see in the New Year.

Last year, Helen and Martin’s sparkling efforts raised just over £1,700 for Alder Hey, so they’ve decided to support the charity again, collecting cash and contactless donations and holding a prize raffle.

Helen says they take their inspiration from other home light shows around the world, especially the USA which likes to go big and bold with its Christmas decorations.

“We’re always looking for ideas online and we get a lot of inspiration from the American shows,” she explains. “There are hundreds of different places that we get the various sequences from and then we tweak them to our design so they work for us.

“It’s all got to fit together to create an overall display, so it’s all about trial and error – the sequencing programme that we use allows us to see if something we like looks right and if it does then we go ahead and purchase it.

“The shows last between 25 minutes and 50 minutes, and we’ve split the songs up into sections this year, so there’s Christmas modern, Christmas instrumental, Christmas classics, and Disney and movies.

“The instrumental is the shortest show, that’s the 9pm one, and the Christmas modern which has songs like Katy Perry’s Cosy Little Christmas and Kylie’s Wonderful Christmastime, is the longest.”

After the launch at 6pm next Thursday, shows will happen every evening at 6pm, 7pm, 8pm and 9pm.

The lights are ready for the big switch-on, after the couple spent two weekends getting them all in position.

Helen says there will be some old favourites from last year’s display, with plenty of new stars of the show including an illuminated three-foot Mickey Mouse spinner for little Disney fans, and a Grand Rosa which is almost four-foot and has a massive 1,392 lights creating lots of different patterns.

The lit-up Megatree, standing three metres tall and topped with a giant Mega Star, is back after being one of 2021’s big attractions.

So many thousands of lights on one house should add up to a nightmare electricity bill, especially with huge energy costs at the moment.

But Helen says luckily the type of props they choose means the cost shouldn’t be too shocking.

“We run the show at about 30% brightness because that’s the best level to view it at, otherwise it can be blinding, and because the lights are all LED and low voltage, and not every light is on at the same time, it actually costs less than putting static fairy lights outside your house.”