Will they win the show's $50,000 prize? Watch video
In anticipation of their home being featured on TV, Bill and Ryan Kloos took off from work and college for the whole month of September to decorate, decorate, and decorate some more.
Last December, a scout for "The Great Christmas Light Fight," a seasonal ABC series, encouraged the brothers to create an audition video. It was the canopy of light in front of their East Brunswick home that caught her eye.
"It's almost like a circus tent," says Bill Kloos, 22. "It pretty much encases the whole yard in lights." The illuminated strands were hoisted 45 feet in the air, cascading all around the property. The feat had been a dream of his since he was 10, when he created his first display for the family's home using just a few strands of lights. In 2015, 12 years, several towers and 12,000 feet of cable later, he finally figured out how to build it.
After submitting an application video, after background checks and other formalities, Kloos is happy to say that yes, he and his brother's work at 13 Sterling Court will be on "The Great Christmas Light Fight" Monday. The Jersey duo will be the youngest competitors ever featured on the show, which functions as a kind of tribute to the people who spend all year devising elaborate Christmas light displays. It's also a competition -- the winner of best lights gets $50,000.
"We went way bigger this year than ever before, because we wanted to win, of course," says Kloos, who graduated last year from Delaware Valley University with a degree in landscape architecture and applies those skills to his business, Landscape Craftsmen in East Brunswick.
New for 2016, accompanying the glowing canopy, dazzling arches and a rooftop Santa and reindeer, are two 60-foot megatrees of light -- guests can walk up to the driveway and walk straight through -- and a brilliant "firework" fixture that sits high atop the house, above all the other illuminations. The brothers spent several years trying to import the device, a ball equipped with long tubes, from China.
The bonanza of lights soaring around and over the Kloos home make the actual house look like a tiny pearl in a glimmering clam shell. There are 250,000 lights altogether, but the family will somehow only spend $400 extra to pay their electric bill for the month. And while the ABC show might make it look like the brothers are the only ones working on the project, it is, in truth, a family effort. Bill Kloos says his father, Bill Kloos Sr., also puts in a significant amount of work, and is vacationing somewhere sunny now that it's finished.
In a nod to ABC's parent company, Disney -- and because there are some elements of the display, that for licensing and permission reasons, can't be shown on TV -- they included a hand-painted Mickey Mouse in the display and a Disneyesque messages spelled out in lights on either side of the house -- "Dream Big," and "Imagination."
On the show -- there's a winner every episode -- the Kloos family will face competition from other holiday light creatives including a family in Arizona that dreamed up an "emoji celebration" with a 20-foot "Frozen" castle. They know the outcome, but can't reveal anything before the show airs.
Ryan Kloos first teamed up with his brother on the display starting in 2008, the year they turned the static light landscape into a synchronized show with music.
"I just love programming," he says. "I get to sit inside in the warm air. It's more relaxing." Music in the display's soundtrack includes "Light of Christmas" by Owl City and "That House on Christmas Street" by Judy Pancoast.
"My sequences have definitely gotten better over the years," he says.
The business management major at Middlesex County College planned to celebrate his 20th birthday on Monday by watching their episode of the ABC holiday lights show. His ultimate goal: open his own amusement park. He says he's been inspired by the local response to their light show.
"You put up something amazing and it gets people together," he says. The canopy of lights has been one of the biggest crowd-pleasers, he says, referring to the annual feats of Christmas cheer as "Kloos Miracles."
The Kloos brothers just visited "The Rachael Ray Show" to promote their episode of the Christmas series, and decorated her studio for the occasion.
Because of the upcoming TV appearance, and since their display attracts so many people -- they've routinely gotten hundreds in the first days of the show (it opened Thursday) and 1,000 per night by the end of the month -- the town is shutting the cul-de-sac down to public traffic, allowing only pedestrians.
"The town's expecting it to get really crazy," Bill says. But starting at 7 p.m. each night until 10, guests are welcome to walk up the driveway to revel in all the holiday splendor.
Each year the Kloos family, like many other high-caliber neighborhood light displays, uses the opportunity to solicit donations for charity, and every cent given gets donated. Over the past eight years they've raised $35,000 for various causes. This year, after seeing his photo on Facebook, the brothers are dedicating the donation box on the west side of the driveway to Trent Powers, a 2-year-old boy in Helmetta who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
"We do it because we like to bring the community together," Bill Kloos says of the show. And the brothers have always felt the love, even when everything wasn't so awash in Christmas cheer. In 2014, after their donation box was stolen, local business pitched in $1,000 to $5,000 each to make up for the loss.
A double episode of the "The Great Christmas Light Fight" airs 8 p.m. Monday, Dec. 5 on ABC but will be delayed or preempted by a football game in the northern New Jersey area. The Kloos' episode starts at 9 p.m. and will air again at 2:35 a.m. on Dec. 7. The East Brunswick light display, located at 13 Sterling Court, is open from 7 to 10 p.m. daily in December. No cars allowed on the street; visitors must walk up to the house. To learn more about Powers Promise, this year's charity for the Kloos' family show, visit gofundme.com/trentpowers