Chandler’s HoHoHome Won’t Happen This Year and Will Be Retiring

Every year in Chandler there is one home that goes ALL OUT, they call it HoHoHome. They're known for their incredible display of lights, vintage blow molds, and custom wood cut outs.  It's a truly incredible sight, that is a labor of love.  Each year the family that puts on HoHoHome also has a hot chocolate night, where people can enjoy hot chocolate will taking in all the beautiful Christmas displays.  Unfortunately this year they won't be putting their lights up.

Here's what the HoHoHome Facebook page said:

Santa's elves have retired.

Part of it is, for the last two years we weren't able to have Hot Chocolate Night because of too much rain. Part of it is, the utility company took our privately-owned telephone poles that we hang part of our display from (more on that, later). Part of it is, it takes time and effort to cajole and corral "volunteers" to help...

Of course, there are many expenses involved, including getting new strands of lights to replace defective old strands, finding blowmolds to replace old ones that have grown too fragile for the display, keeping our bucket truck and four wheelers and trailers operational, new material to update or replace existing wood displays... not to mention all the hot chocolate mix and the ingredients for thousands of Grandma's M&M cookies on Hot Chocolate Night. And the gasoline isn't insignificant, either: One year we had to travel to Louisville to get a piece of plexiglass big enough to hold the snow for our Snow Globe castle!

But more than that is the time. We got to be rather effective with managing the month of November: Over the years we developed systems where we could put up the whole display in a month, starting right after Hallowe'en and we'd just barely be done before Hot Chocolate Night... but, during November we'd have very little time to keep up with our other chores and responsibilities. This year, not putting up HoHoHome has freed up November for us so that we can keep up with our other responsibilities without being totally wiped out. It's surreal to have a bit of time free to go shopping or do year-end-chores around the house during the month of November.

To the folks who we managed to get to 'volunteer' in helping us through the years, we appreciate and have enjoyed everything you've done for the display.

We haven't decided yet what the future is for our display, for our home-grown wood cutouts, the vintage scenes from Schnapf lane, or the blow-molds. But we won't be putting them on display any more.

My family has always enjoyed driving out the Chandler to take in this gorgeous light display, and last year my nephew got to see it for the first time, and it was just in awe.  I'm sad to hear it won't be going on anymore, but the memories will last forever. Thank you HoHoHome for all the amazing Christmas memories you gave to my family, and no doubt many other families in the Tri-State.