Matthew Sanders and Brenda Rowley’s “3rd Street Light Show” has become a local favorite. Their home at 702 N. Third St. is covered in dazzling LED lights that are programmed to choreography matching holiday music that can be heard by turning an FM radio to 88.7.

“It just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Sanders said of his lights display.

Sanders’ passion for holiday light decorations started at a young age. Growing up in Dayton, his family would go all out in decorating their home and yard for the community’s annual holiday lights contest.

“We’d win the Dayton contest every year until we were disqualified,” Sanders said. “They said we couldn’t do it anymore because people got mad that we kept winning.”

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Matthew Sanders and Brenda Rowley set up a 12-foot skeleton for their Halloween lights display this year and they decided to leave it up for Christmas, adding a Santa Claus suit to it.

When Sanders moved into his current home in 2008, he began his holiday lights displays, but the choreographed light shows synched up to music didn’t start until about three years ago.

The light display’s beginnings can be seen with a wooden tractor outlined in LED lights on the side of the home. The tractor was built by Sanders and his father in the late 1980s for their family’s light show at the time.

Nearly every inch of the yard and exterior walls of the home are covered in holiday decorations and lights. Sanders said he lost count of how many items he has out on display.

“Skully” the skeleton greets visitors at the corner, dressed in a Santa suit and beard.

The couple also does a Halloween light display during October and Skully, as well as a couple other skeletons now dressed as Clark Griswold and Cousin Eddie from “Christmas Vacation,” are holdovers from that display.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
The Christmas light show at 702 N. Third St. in Fort Dodge will be set up through Jan. 1, 2024.

“We started this [display] right after Halloween,” Rowley said. “We took down Halloween in one day and then we started putting things up. And he’s been building things and we keep putting things up all the time.”

Nearly every piece of the display is handmade by Sanders.

“It’s pretty much year-round,” he said. “I work on little things here and there.”

In total, there are roughly 80,000 LED lights in the entire display.

On a small patio off of the driveway, Rowley has set up a place where families can sit down and take photos. The centerpiece, however, is the bright red mailbox for letters to Santa. Young visitors can leave a letter to Santa with their name and address, and in a few days they’ll get a letter back.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Skeleton versions of Clark Griswold and Cousin Eddie from "Christmas Vacation" make an appearance as part of the holiday light show display at 702 N. Third St. in Fort Dodge.

Rowley was inspired by a project a local 4-H group did in a town she lived in previously.

“My kids loved it, so I wanted to do a mailbox,” she said.

So far, she’s sent out about 42 letters, but she checks the mailbox each evening for any new Santa mail.

“We just really enjoy doing it,” Rowley said.

The lights display’s future is about as bright as its 80,000 LED lights.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Nearly all of the light decorations at the 702 N. Third St. display were made by homeowner Matthew Sanders.

“I just want to keep getting it as big as I can get,” Sanders said. “There’s always a place to put something new.”

The light show, complete with music, plays every night after dark. It will run through Jan. 1.

Updates on the display can be found on the Facebook page “3rd Street Light Show.”