Two Ogden families are dueling over Christmas decorations

With thousands of lights and plenty of decorations, the Dobbins’ house is pretty hard to miss. But they’ve got some competition right next door, from their relatives.

The decoration duel started about eight years ago, when Rick Williams and his family moved next door to his brother in law, Jeff Dobbins, and his family.

“First Christmas comes around and he throws up a bunch of lights. New kid on the block trying to show everybody up,” said Jeff. Then, it was on.

“It’s always got to get bigger and better every year,” Jeff said.

“My first big tree was probably 25 feet tall, now we’re up to 80,” added Rick Williams.

The brothers-in-laws start decorating their houses in October and Williams said he would have had even more lights this year if he had more time. “I’ve just always enjoyed putting them up. When we moved down here, into the middle of the woods, there wasn’t really a lot of sense in doing it the first few years. Nobody ever came. But the more we did the more people heard about it and the more people started showing up,” he said.

And now it’s something people have come to expect every year. It’s a common scene to see cars slowly rolling by, taking in the spectacle

Williams said, “Somebody came the other night that lives 50 miles away and heard about it.”

The families invite everyone to check out the display, but you better hurry. The lights will start to come down the day after Christmas.

“It comes down a lot quicker than it goes up. Usually it only takes two or three days to take it down, takes about six weeks to put it up,” Dobbins said.

If you don’t catch it this year, don’t worry, there’s always next Christmas. These families have no plans of slowing down.

It’s all in good fun, and they said it’s not so much a competition anymore as it is entertaining people who come by to check out the decorations. You can find these holiday houses on Buckeye Drive in Ogden.