Son adorns yard with 40,000 lights to honor mom’s spirit

Lenny Hafford’s lawn is a Christmas wonderland, filled with statues and ornaments that have more than 40,000 holiday lights attached.

There are 24-foot light-up soldiers guarding the driveway and light-up merry-go-rounds, Ferris wheels and elves. In a pond on the property, there are lighted jumping dolphins, a waving Cajun Santa, swimming swans and a nativity scene. And almost every decoration, whether a foot tall or 25 feet tall, was built by Hafford.

Hafford said that the Christmas display on his lawn has caused hundreds of visitors to drive down the dead-end Grand Bayou Road in Des Allemands just to see the lights.

“One woman even ran over my mailbox because she was so distracted – she had just come by to see the lights,” he said. “Every night, we look out the window and there are people driving by.”

Hafford got into the Christmas spirit this year in honor of his mother, Ula. Ula passed away in April, but she had always loved lighting up her house for the holidays. Her decorations were the first to grace the neighborhood streets – after Hafford put them up for her – and she loved seeing the decorations throughout town. This year, she wanted to have a competition with neighbors to see who could put up the most holiday decorations, but unfortunately she did not live to fulfill that wish.

When she died, Hafford had no idea how he would cope with such a huge loss. He and his mother shared such a close bond that on the morning she passed away, he awoke in the night knowing it would be her last day.

With Christmas drawing near, Hafford realized that going forth with her plans to have the best holiday decorations in town would be a wonderful way to honor his mother’s memory.
“She loved sharing Christmas with people and she loved the lights,” he said about his mother.

His girlfriend, Miki Lamartina, helped him assemble and set-up the huge light display.

“That’s how he worked through his grief,” Lamartina said. “Everybody grieves differently and his is constructive.”

Hafford had previously built a huge work shed while grieving the loss of his best friend.

In addition to the massive amount of lights on his property, Hafford decorated his mother’s tomb with lights.

“We brought the decorations to her too since she can’t be here to see them,” he said.

Hafford and Lamartina took two weeks off in November from their jobs at Entergy to assemble the decorations on the lawn, but they still did not finish putting them all up until Dec. 10. They will leave the lights up until Jan. 7.

There are so many lights on his lawn that they have to be attached to three different meters. Hafford said that despite what some people believe, he does not get free electricity because he works at Entergy. He said he has no idea how much the cost of running his display will be until the bill comes next month.

Regardless of the bill, Hafford has even bigger plans for next year.

“I’m going to build a Cinderella carriage and a big train and name it after my mom,” he said. He already traveled as far as Arkansas to get parts to build the train and has a store of additional Christmas lights building up in his shed. “Next year it will definitely be bigger.”