FOR eight years, 36 Mahogany St, Raceview has been transformed into a Christmas wonderland, welcoming thousands of families through its gates and becoming one of Ipswich’s most recognisable festive attractions.
Michael Watkins and his partner Kym Smart-Watkins announced their retirement from Christmas lights displays after last year’s winning display.
“We haven’t just decided to give this year a miss – we have sadly decided to retire from doing Christmas lights altogether,” Mr Watkins said.
“It was a very difficult decision to make, but we feel the time has come to hand over the reins to others to continue spreading the Christmas cheer.”
What began as a bit of fun between the couple quickly developed into an extraordinary Christmas obsession.
“We wanted to put up a few lights, which we did, and then thought, why don’t we enter the competition?” Mr Watkins said. “We added a few more lights to make sure we were ready to enter, and that’s when it began.
“For those who know me, it was always ‘go big or go home’ and seeing as I was already at home, I could only go big!”
The Raceview property collected four Best Residential Display titles in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2025, alongside three People’s Choice awards in 2018, 2019 and 2025.
Their 2025 success was particularly special, with 36 Mahogany St becoming the first display to win both awards in the same year.
“We are simply grateful to have been given the opportunity to give back to the community in a way that has been so meaningful to both us and the people who visited,” Mr Watkins said.
“We had more families come through (in 2025), more opportunities to give back to the community, multiple Santa giveaway nights and even a cash giveaway night,” he said.
“We were also able to support small businesses by allowing them to set up food and drink stalls on site.”
The scale of the operation was enormous, although Mr Watkins admitted he could never provide an exact count of the individual lights covering the property.
“If we laid all the lights end to end, we could safely say they would stretch all the way to Bundaberg,” he said.
Mr Watkins said the couple typically started setting up in August, with the final decorations not packed away until February.
Averaging approximately 2500 visitors on most nights, the display welcomed around 30,000 people each Christmas season, adding up over the eight festive seasons to an estimated 240,000 visits.
For the Watkins family, however, the final chapter was always going to be emotional, saying the last shutdown night in 2025 was marked by tears and heavy hearts, with friends, family and some of their most loyal visitors gathering to share the moment.
“We know our lighting legacy will live on through the many displays that have taken inspiration from parts of the legend that was Mahogany St Christmas lights!” Mr Watkins said.
“We look forward to seeing what displays enter the competition this year. Who knows, we might even pop in for a visit!”
