Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you; Garden City home’s displays are mind-blowing treats
Family’s imaginative holiday displays draw visitors from near and far, raise money for local charities
The dazzling holiday displays Kyle and Christina Bostick create on the front yard of their Garden City home located at 22195 Sheridan Street are so eyes-pleasing cool, they wouldn’t be out of place if somehow plopped down on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Bosticks’ creations — they build displays for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July — have proven to be so magnetic, thousands of people drive by each season, hungry to be entertained by the array of strategically-placed flashing lights, oversized skeletons and music that synchs to an FM radio frequency.
Their shows have been broadcast on all of the local news stations — and even earned a cameo on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show.
“It all started (in 2020) when my wife showed me some videos of similar shows on YouTube,” Kyle Bostick said. “She said, ‘You have to figure out how to do this.’ Initially, I told her it was over my head and that I couldn’t do it. But lo and behold, COVID hit, I had some time off work and I had some time to figure it out.”
Did he ever.
Using Halloween-themed items they purchased online — except for the 12-foot-tall skeleton that the Bosticks found at Home Depot — the fun-loving couple designed an initial display that wound up blasting out 7,000 pixels.
“We had literally thousands of cars drive by (during October of 2020),” Kyle said. “Both sides of the street were lined with cars, end to end. The cars were even lined up around Middlebelt for a few blocks. The show blew up quickly and got real popular.
“A lot of people thank us for what we do. They tell us it brings them joy. We even had parents of an autistic child tell us that when she’s having a tough week, they’ll bring her to our show and it makes her happy. Stories like that really touch us.”
Bostick said even most of his neighbors are on board with the displays that are so bright, passengers on jets heading to nearby Detroit Metropolitan Airport can probably see them as the as the jets descend.
“Most of our neighbors have been super-supportive,” he said. “We even held a block party barbecue over the summer as kind of a thank you for dealing with all the traffic we put them through.”
Bostick revealed the high-tech shows have more than boosted his neighborhood’s trick-or-treat activity.
“Before we started doing this, you could count the number of trick-or-treaters we’d get each year on two hands,” he said. “Now, we get over a thousand trick-or-treaters. Last year we spent about $500 on candy alone.”
Probably the best part of the Bosticks’ shows is that they raise a lot of money for local charities. Two donation boxes located near their street are routinely filled by passing spectators who are educated about the couple’s big-hearted fundraising ideas during the musical broadcasts.
“So far we’ve raised about $20,000 for charities — about $3,000 to $5,000 each show,” Kyle said. “This Halloween we’re raising money for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. We choose a different charity for every show. We’ve also raised money for children’s hospitals, animal shelters and an IVF fertility facility.”
The 2022 Halloween shows run from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Bostick said it takes about two to three weeks to set up each display and the items are all stored in the family’s garage.
Until the next season, when they’re brought back to life with Las Vegas-level pizzazz to entertain thousands of people and raise additional funds for worthwhile causes.
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