Christmas Tradition: The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights
Learn the story behind the Christmas tradition of the Osborne Family Spectacle of Light at Disney World
Walt Disney World hosts one of the world's most popular Christmas traditions
From Mickey's Christmas Carol to the reading of the Christmas Story with full choral accompaniment, Disney hosts a pile of Christmas traditions -- but none are quite as spectacular, or have quite as moving a story, as the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
What Is It?
The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights has become Disney's unrivaled most popular holiday attraction. The display involves over 10 miles of rope lighting and 30 miles of extension cords, all held together with over two million ties, and lighting them up takes 800,000 watts of electricity. The display doesn't appear until mid-November in its fully lit form, but since it takes over 20, 000 hours to install the display, construction starts in September.
In what has become one of Disney's most important Christmas traditions, the lights are turned on every night at dusk until the first week of January.
History
The Osborne Family spectacle hasn't always been one of Disney's Christmas traditions, though -- in fact, it all began with Jennings Osborne, his wife Mitzi, and their six year old daughter Breezy. In 1986, Breezy wanted to decorate their home in beautiful Christmas lights and her parents, who had suffered five miscarriages prior to her arrival, readily agreed.They got a bit carried away, though, and got more so every year until they had to purchase the two properties next to their own to hold their exhibit. Unfortunately, the beautiful and blinding attraction was far from popular with Osborne's neighbors, who didn't appreciate the traffic it brought during the holiday season.
The neighbors tried to shut down this, one of many, new Christmas traditions, and eventually Osborne agreed to only operate them during set hours. When a family arrived just after they'd been shut off, though, he agreed to turn them on and give them a look, and the neighbors pounced, successfully petitioning the courts to have the display shut down. Disney World subsequently purchased the display, and it's been there ever since.
Features
Disney has expanded the display significantly, but some of its more impressive original features included a fully lit globe with Bethlehem labeled, a 70 foot tall Christmas tree, and a canopy of 30,000 red lights over the driveway.
The Osborne lights demonstrate both extremes of the season, the Scrooges and the givers. Fortunately, Walt Disney stepped in to take over the Osborne vision for future Christmas traditions, and this spectacle is safe for generations to enjoy.