Greeley Holidaze House lights up the night with Christmas cheer
This is the second Adam Artz and his wife, Jessica, put on the display. Courtesy photo.
By Dan England
When Jim and Jo Perry asked their nephew, Adam Artz, if he wanted to carry on the family tradition of holiday decorating, Artz told them it would be an honor. He drove to Morrison with his truck, followed by his wife, Jessica, and her sport-utility vehicle.
After one trip, they realized the size of Uncle Jim and Aunt Jo’s Christmas collection made their two hefty vehicles as humble as Yugos. They rented a 26-foot moving truck and, as Adam said, “packed it all the way to the back.”
“It was Tetris to the extreme,” Jessica said.
You’ll see why the display required a truck capable of moving a five-bedroom house when you drive by the Artzs, as they hope you do this Christmas. Now the display, in just its second year, is one of the few capable of replacing the Greeley Grizwalds as the Crazy Christmas house. They even created a Facebook page for it.
More than 90 percent of the display is from the Perrys’ old house. Jim and Jo’s Morrison home for years drew the same kind of crowds that now drive by the Artz home, 1712 37th Ave. in Greeley. Uncle Jim and Aunt Jo simply got too old for it. It is a bit of work.
Adam and Jessica start working on their display the second week of October and begin setting it up the day after Halloween. They worked on it every day, sometimes all day, until Thanksgiving night. Adam, who used to flip houses and now works for DoorDash, took three weeks off to set it up, and Jessica, who works from home, did about as much, even if she avoids the top roof because she doesn’t like ladders.
The Artz family loves Christmas and all the traditions that come with it. Courtesy photo.
They love Christmas and the traditions that come with it, and they couldn’t resist carrying on crazy displays. Jim’s father also won many lighting contests in Littleton decades ago. But they also did it for their two kids, Annabelle, 10, and Adam Jr, aka AJ, 7.
“It was always special to go to my aunt’s house,” Adam said. “It made me feel special. I wanted my kids to feel that way.”
It quickly became a tradition on Jessica’s side as well. After meeting online, Jessica moved out from San Francisco to Greeley, where Adam grew up and lived. When Adam invited her to see Jim and Jo’s house, she loved it so much that her parents tagged along the next visit.
Their neighbors, many of them with children, are tolerant of the display and even seem to enjoy it, the Artzs said, even the crowds that come with it. But they try to make concessions, such as turning on the lights at 5 p.m. and turning them off at 10 p.m. They play music on the weekends, but only from 5-8 p.m., and a bear has a bucket of candy canes for little ones. They also plan to host a holiday party for their neighbors as a thank you for not being Grinches about it. Jessica, now 37, married Adam, now 43, in 2010. They’ve lived in their current house for six years and always put up a display but went all out when Jo and Jim called two years ago.
“It took us about five minutes to decide to do it,” Adam said.
They add to the display every year, although they may run out of room to put everything. They stuff a guest room — well, it WAS a guest room, Jessica said — full of the decorations, so much so that the door doesn’t close all the way.
When Jessica wasn’t outside helping Adam, she was rewiring the older decorations, replacing the bulbs with LED lights, both to save energy and maybe not make the display as much of a fire hazard. It takes her an hour now to rewire a decoration, but reducing the time to that took a lot of trial and error, she said.
“It’s good teamwork,” she said.
The two didn’t plan on the house being a big deal — that Facebook page was only for close family and friends — but word got around, and so they said what the heck and opened it up for everyone. Uncle Jim and Aunt Jo, after all, did the same thing many years ago.
To learn more
You can find a bit more information on the page Greeley Holidaze House on Facebook.