The story behind a Winnipeg man’s 100,000-light Christmas display

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This article was published 24/11/2015 (3686 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

By turning on 100,000 Christmas lights on his home in River East, Michael Geiger-Wolf is inviting everyone to join him in turning the lights out on cancer.

Geiger-Wolf, a two-time cancer survivor whose non-Hodgkin lymphoma is currently in remission, flipped the switch on Tuesday night to illuminate his house at 18 Mildred St. for a sixth straight year and raise money to fight cancer, a vicious disease that threatened twice to kill him.

“Christmas is the season for hope and it’s the season of giving and we just hope this is a great way to inspire people to give and to help keep research going and turn the lights out on cancer by coming and enjoying the lights that I turn on,” said Geiger-Wolf, who said the LED light display is 30,000 bulbs more than last year. An accountant by profession, Geiger-Wolf said he’s a “geekie-techie” by hobby.

In five years of presenting his light display, Geiger-Wolf has raised $35,000 toward the fight against cancer and he’s hoping this year will be the biggest and best yet.

In 2003, Geiger-Wolf fought stage-four non-Hodgkin lymphoma into remission. In 2012, a new cancer was found and he beat that one, too, with chemotherapy and a new antibody treatment.

“I had four tumours wrapped around my spine, one of them had grown into my spine and I couldn’t walk anymore (in 2003). There were tumours all over the place,” he said. “Thanks to some research and clinical trial work, they (treatments) were very successful.”

He said he started the Christmas lights display as a “seize the day” project at first and turned it into a fundraiser after he had a recurrence of the cancer in 2010.

“I was a candidate for a brand new drug with very few side effects,” he said.

“I decided to turn it into a fundraiser in 2010 keep the research going. They’ve now realized, with non-Hodgkin lymphoma at least, it’s not really a question of if it comes back, it’s when. So they’re always developing better and better drugs to keep you in remission longer and longer. But if we don’t keep up with the research, people like me and people with lots of other kinds of cancer, it’ll come back. And then what.”

For families of cancer patients, it is excruciating to watch their loved ones suffer. For people fighting cancer, the fight really never ends.

“You’re always living with the thought that it (remission) is temporary. Every time I get a sore back, I’m thinking ‘Oh my God’ because that’s really the only symptom that I had,” Geiger-Wolf said.

He said 100,000 of the energy-efficient LED lights he has now are equivalent in energy use to 1,000 of the old LED lights he had in the first few years of his display.

Geiger-Wolf’s light display, set to holiday music, features a light canopy over his driveway, a front yard filled with lighted trees and two angels that resemble Winnipeg’s downtown angel decorations atop a pole. There’s video images of A Charlie Brown Christmas projected onto his garage door and a weirdly realistic looking projection in the two second-storey windows overlooking the driveway of Santa and Mrs. Claus going about their Christmas preparations. Santa even appears to wave at onlookers below. There’s a collection of illuminated Star Wars figures including a Storm Trooper, R2D2, Yoda and Darth Vader. Christmas music is broadcast live and on the radio, on 93.9 FM within range of his house.

Geiger-Wolf said people in his neighbourhood have been very supportive of his Christmas display and fundraising project and he makes sure his display is respectful of the neighbours. On school nights, the lights and music are on from 4-10 p.m. and on weekends, it’s 4 p.m.-midnight. Closer to the holidays, he will keep them on a bit longer.

“It’s for a great cause and he does an amazing job. I’ve got young kids so they really enjoy it,” said Bill Chambers, Geiger-Wolf’s next-door neighbour. “It’s a great thing he’s doing. And sometimes, if we don’t have our Christmas CDs out, we just tune in to his FM (radio station) and listen to his music!”

But Geiger-Wolf said the most important feature of the display is a collection box to which everyone is invited to make a donation to the Canadian Cancer Society. People can also donate by going to his website http://www.geiger-wolf.com/ where there is a link to his fundraising page on the Canadian Cancer Society website where people may donate online.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca

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