Pasadena Family’s Holiday Light Display Wins $50,000 in National Contest

The Harbecks home on Pasadena’s Tropical Ave. in the Hastings Ranch neighborhood will be hard to miss this holiday season.

Their extravagant holiday light display, with angel wings made from recycled plastic bottles and colorful gumdrops that light up in different colors, helped them win a reality show competition for the best Christmas lights this week.

The competition is ABC’s “The Great Christmas Light Fight,” a reality TV competition originally titled “Lights, Camera, Christmas!” that premiered on Dec.9, 2013. The series airs Mondays in the first three weeks of December annually as part of the network’s seasonal programming lineup, 25 Days of Christmas. The series is now in its 11th season.

The Harbecks of Pasadena were featured in the Dec. 5 episode and won $50,000 and a holiday-themed trophy as the week’s winner.

“The Harbeck Family wins with the Light Side of The Force,” reads ABC’s headline for the episode. “Combining the resourcefulness of DIY designs and computer animation know-how, the Harbeck Family channels the Light Side of The Force for their ‘Star Wars’ themed display.”

“The Harbecks spent more than 600 hours just last year making some of the other lights using two 3D printers, including butterflies, snowflakes and more,” according to Fox 11 that reported on the Harbecks holiday light display.

Husband and wife Andy and Tatiana Harbeck said they’ve been part of the Upper Hastings Ranch Association (UHRA) annual Holiday Light Up every year, since they displayed a reindeer and a string of lights about 12 years ago. They and with their two teenaged sons have been working on this year’s display for several months.

Andy Harbeck works as an animator at Dreamworks Animation, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures.

“I think it’s kind of the story that we told with the lights,” Andy told Fox 11 about their winning. “They all kind of come together with some of the sequences to create more of an emotional story.”

“Everytime that I hear this song, it makes me cry,” Tatiana Harbeck said as she watched – and listened – their award-winning display. “But it’s kind of happy because you’re with your family watching the show. It’s so special.”

The Harbecks’ display, which is turned on every night throughout the season, features the lawn decorated with Star Wars-based animations and products, an eight-bit retro game style platform on the roof, which showcased a beautiful story along with the light show, a Wispy Forest with “trees” made with 3-D printers, and a robot named Winston that’s connected to servers and talks to visitors.

Lighter PVC “candy canes” also line the lawn, and in the backyard can be seen some bubble trees and butterflies, along with angel wings formed by using recycled water bottles.

Along with the TV audience and visitors to Pasadena, neighbors at Upper Hastings Ranch were equally amazed with the Harbecks’ home decorations this year.

“The Harbeck family is wonderful,” Tiffany Gardner, Board members of the UHRA, said. “They’re just the kindest people, and many houses on their street started lighting up after they did. We have our fingers crossed that they win, but even if they don’t, we feel like winners for having them here.”