New Iberians voted on their favorite decorated houses as part of the New Iberia Community Advent.

In First Place were the dancing lights of 319 Lucerne Street, designed by 20-year-old Luke Scott. He started decorating with his backyard treehouse in 2013, when Scott was in 5th grade. Initially, he was decorating with normal Christmas lights, but by the second or third year, he received his first smart-light box for Christmas.

When he moved the lightshow into the front yard, he decided to invest further and purchased a full controller board to sequence lights himself. He started with incandescent lights, but he switched to pixel nodes a few years ago.

According to Scott, setup only takes one or two weeks if nothing new is involved, but sequencing a new set of lights can take months. Each of the structures, such as the trees, were built from scratch.

Scott was inspired by the Schlicher’s home at 211 Estate Drive, who always hosted a musical lightshow themselves. As a young boy, Scott would visit the home, which sparked a curiosity in him. As he got older, he received recommendations and assistance with planning and executing his own lights from them.

“It’s grown into almost a hobby, like what can I do next?” Scott said.

Scott said he didn’t realize how many people actually visit the house until he started going around town and working as a real-estate agent. This year, he bought his own home, but when he considered not putting the lights up at his parents, he received pushback.

“When people were asking me when are your lights starting, and I said ‘I don’t know if I’m doing them this year.’ People were actually getting mad at me, like ‘no, you have to do it, my grandkids have to see your house,’” Scott said.

In second place was the tight-spaced yet vibrant 823 Julia Street decorated by Jennifer and Clint Myers. Clint first started decorating for Christmas when he and his wife had their first daughter 30 years ago and it has progressed significantly.

He even influenced some of his neighbors, with the house across the street also setting up lively decorations.

“We try to encourage our neighbors to join in, it would be nice. The neighbor across the street started recently, and he’s following our steps of adding to it every year,” Myers said.

They started decorating Nov. 1, and only placed the final piece out last Friday.

“It takes some time, because I can only do a little bit each evening, and whatever time I have on the weekend,” Myers said.

Charles Guilbeau always decorated a little bit, but in recent years, the whole family started getting involved, including Charles’ 17-year-old son, Kaden, so they started to expand their decorations. It took about two months to completely set up the decorations, which included adding new projects and repainting past decorations.

“As soon as we took down our Halloween decorations, we started with Christmas,” Charles said.

Previously, they added a Santa house with a working chimney made from a fog machine. They mixed cinnamon sugar cookies with essential oils into the fog machine, which wafted a festive scent through the air.

With the exception of the elves, everything they make is DIY, and they try to add new pieces to the yard every year. This year, they added the cocoa bar, which included music and laser lights, so when the elves are done at Santa’s Workshop, they can mosey on down to the cocoa bar for a drink. Hanging above the bar is the sign, the Iberian Bar, which has a meaning of its own.

Angela, Charles’ wife, makes the creative decisions on the new projects added every year. Her mom’s family originally hailed from the Spanish Iberian Peninsula, and they later settled here in New Iberia. So, in honor of both her legacy, and our city, their son, Kaden, recommended the name, the Iberian Bar.

While Charles and his family enjoy decorating sheerly because of their fun family nature, they especially enjoy seeing the faces of the children as they stop by and share in the magic. Charles even purchased a Grinch suit this year to pass out candy canes to kids who stop by.

“We like doing this, especially for the children. We tell them to get down, and the little ones, their eyes would light up so much. They can take pictures in the Santa sleigh,” Charles said.