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Winner of Britain’s best Christmas lights used 60,000 bulbs and took 300 hours to set up


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Britain’s best Christmas lights display has been revealed, and it’s a total cracker.

A family from Buckinghamshire won the competition run by a price comparison website, and their masses of hard work has paid off.

Tony Shepherd, 63, from Marlow Bottom, uses an astronomical 60,000 lights on his family home, all of which are synchronised to 15 Christmas songs. Each song takes 20 hours to programme.

That’s a whopping 300 hours of programming alone, before they’ve even spent time putting up the numerous strings of lights.

Tony uses Light O Rama software and hardware to make the impressive lighting move with the music, and people come from miles around to get in the Christmas spirit.

The lights are on every day from 4pm to 11pm, with the musical part of their display running from 5pm to 9pm each night. They even have a schedule so people can get ready for each song.

Each part of the house and garden lights up in time with music (Picture: MoneyExpert.com)

The Shepherd family run their display every year, and have raises thousands for different charities, with people who come to see the spectacle offering up donations.

At their light switch-on on 1 December, over 150 people turned out so see the house, and the efforts have raised almost £3,000 this year already.

As the prize, which comes from MoneyExpert.com, the Shepherds will get £500 towards their – probably astronomical – electricity bill. Tony, however, has decided to donate this to charity.

People come from miles around to witness the lights (Picture: MoneyExpert.com)

Following his win, Tony said: ‘We create our display every Christmas, and it’s become a local tradition for visitors from far afield to come and see our lights!

‘We’ve raised over £30,000 for charity over the past three years, so I can’t wait to see how much we can raise for the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust this year!’

Tony’s win comes after MoneyExpert.com’s research revealed that Brits will spend £222 million on Christmas lights this season, with energy bills expected to increase by a third for households like The Shepherd’s.

Jason Smith, CEO of MoneyExpert.com, said: ‘Our research found that 1 in 5 British households decorate their homes for the local community. Tony’s epic display stood out as embodying the true spirit of Christmas, in particular as it helps to raise so much needed funds for deserving charities.

Christmas is one of the most costly times of the year, but it still isn’t too late to save yourself some unnecessary expenses by switching energy providers.’

Are you going crazy for Christmas this year? Get in touch at MetroLifestyleTeam@metro.co.uk.

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