With Christmas just around the corner, the days are growing hotter, and the sun is setting a lot later.

When the night finally does settle, that is when members of the community set out in search of a little Christmas magic.

Located at 48 Sapphire Drive in Hairini, Terralie and Keith Hardy have spent the last 15 years perfecting their Christmas light display.

With 36 reindeer, a full size Santa sleigh and palm trees created by Keith, it is no wonder hundreds of people come in search of the Hairini property every year.

Although the display may look like the Hardy's are Christmas mad, Terralie says they are far from Christmas mad, and the lights are for the community and their grandchildren.

'We don't celebrate Christmas hugely, it's just the lights and we do it for the kids. The biggest highlight is to see their faces when they come in.

'They sit on the sleigh and get their photos taken and just take it all in.

'One kid a few years ago and asked me where Santa was and I said ‘well Santa is inside making your toys.' He had seen all the reindeer and the sleigh and was wondering where he was.”

The couple are also popular with the elder generation with retirement village busses being frequent passers-by along their street.

'You find that the last week is just absolutely chaos. People are queuing up just to have a look,” says Terralie.

Terralie has no idea how many lights they have all together but Keith says the small bushes at the front of the property hold four and a half thousand lights.

'There are so many plug sockets I couldn't even count,” says Terralie. 'There are hundreds.”

'The power probably adds up to being a couple of dollars extra a day, it becomes an extra $200 or so I'd say. We don't take any coins or anything like that, we just do it for the enjoyment, for the community.

The most expensive part, says Keith, is the maintenance of the lights.

'If the lights are meant to last five years that means every year we're having to replace 20 per cent of them every year.

'We do have all LED now which we have had to do because we find the LED ones last a lot longer.”

The lights weren't always the star of the show, however, as the Hardy's dog Smudge used to be the brightest attraction.

Terralie says Smudge made it into the paper a few times and he was always dressed up.

'The kids loved him, but unfortunately we had to put him down this year – it won't be the same without him.”

'From October to December we're Christmas'd out.

'One year we didn't do it and people were coming past just to see what we had done and asking why we hadn't put the Christmas lights out.

'This year we haven't got our dog, and a lot of people would come to see Smudge which will be different, and we will also have to stay up on our deck due to Covid.

'Last year, we played music and had candy sticks for the kids. We'll have to social distance this year, but it will still be just wonderful.

'We're doing it for the community; just to give them a bit more Christmas spirit.”

Sun Media will be publishing a full list of places to see Christmas lights around the city as part of its Christmas Lights Drive in the December 10 edition of the Weekend Sun.

If you want your property to be included in this year's drive, email office@thesun.co.nz with the subject 'Christmas Lights Drive” by end of play tomorrow, December 7.

Please make sure to include our name, address and phone number.