Massive Christmas-light display near Macon is family’s gift to locals

If you’re not plugged in on Facebook, or if you don’t travel the country lanes out below, say, Tobler Creek north of Macon on the east side of Interstate 75, you might not know about a near-Disney-grade light show that beams to life each Christmas.

For the past decade or so, the Watson family at 1403 Pate Road — about a mile west of Ga. 87 — has turned its half-mile-long driveway into a wonderland of wattage. They have four power meters.

The scene is a homemade version of the annual holiday lane of lights at Callaway Gardens, and it has grown each year as the Watsons have collected more lights.

The free display, which attracts about 300 cars a night, wends past dozens of lit-up characters. Many of the lights are synchronized with Christmas music, which guests can hear on their radios.

Perhaps the main attraction is a wooden-bridge tunnel of lights that cars ride through. Soon there will be a scene themed around the movie “Frozen,” matched up with the song “Let It Go.”

Haleigh Watson, 25, learned the electronic ropes of the display from her father, and she has taken the lead on arranging the display every year.

“We’ll be sitting out there and people will honk and say, ‘This is our fifth time coming through,’” she says. “I think we’ve see it all.”

They’ve had visitors cruise through on four-wheelers. They’ve had an ambulance and a fire truck roll through, and a trolley bus from Macon. This year the Watsons added a driveway that bypasses the front of their house so the traffic isn’t running past their front door.

The display has become a regional attraction.

Watson says a stranger asked her the other day, “Have you been to those lights on Pate Road?”

“Yeah,” Watson replied, not letting on that it was her house. “I’ve been there.”

Joe Kovac Jr.: 478-744-4397, @joekovacjr.

This story was originally published December 6, 2017 at 12:49 PM with the headline "Massive Christmas-light display near Macon is family’s gift to locals."