UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas — Wayne Smith's home in University Park has been a Christmas destination for seven years now. His several-hundred-strong collection of light-up Santas and his plastic menagerie of other illuminated holiday decorations can be seen a block or two away from the 3600 block of Southwestern Boulevard.
"Would you agree you've gone a little bit overboard?" I asked him.
"Oh yeah, absolutely," the semi-retired building contractor admitted with a laugh as he stood next to a waving row of electrified Santas. Those Santas were also just a few feet from the Santa-hat-wearing original head of Big Tex that is perched above his front door porch.
But in addition to attracting pedestrian and vehicle traffic every night, being overboard apparently also attracts people maybe a few steps further overboard than he is.
Take Monday night, for example.
"I'm walking a Christmas tree," said a man who identified himself as "Lee, the Lakewood Kangaroo."
Working nearby on a construction project, he noticed the Santa collection and decided to use it as a backdrop in his most recent YouTube movie. Really.
"I can't see where I'm going, so don't let me run over ya," he said as he used a rope to drag an artificial Christmas tree on a homemade wooden stand up and down the sidewalk in front of Smith's home. He was using a home video camera to record his performance.
"Absolutely nothing wrong with me," he joked. "It's my tree that's got all the problems."
He said the episode he was taping would be called "The Lost Christmas Tree."
"So I can say you're not some crazy guy in a kangaroo outfit walking a Christmas tree, you're a filmmaker," I said.
"Well, I'm a little of both," he laughed. "I'm a crazy filmmaker in a kangaroo suit. How about that?"
Smith had never seen the kangaroo before and had no idea who he was. And while admitting that as a Santa collector he might be eccentric, he does have his limits.
"I'm not gonna walk around in my pajamas with fuzz on them dragging a tree," he laughed.
Whatever crowd he attracts, Smith just hopes that his Christmas display — that adds an extra $1,000 to his monthly electric bill and required the installation of a second electrical panel on his house — just serves to brighten someone's Christmas.
That's his only goal.
"Because I love Christmas and it seems to bring a lot of people joy," he said. "If I made one person laugh or just smile for a little bit then it was worth every bit of it."
And he can make one guarantee. He'll have even more Santas next year, and happily go overboard on Christmas maybe a step or two more.
Smith says he has twice turned down the producers of the Great American Light Fight to be on their TV show on ABC. The episodes have to be taped in July or August, which means he would have to install all the Santas in the heat of summer.
He's content just focusing on lighting up his neighborhood and offering his gift of Christmas joy just once a year.