Christmas has always been significant to John and Joan Reichart.
On Christmas Eve in 1970, John, who had returned to Indianola after serving as a marine in the Vietnam War, proposed to his fiancée Joan.
After marrying, the pair vowed to make each Christmas memorable. The Reicharts grew to value their holidays over time.
“Coming out of the Great Depression and World War II when we were born, you know, people didn’t have a lot of things, so there were Christmases that we both remember not getting any gifts,” John, who is now 74, said. “Once we married, we both decided we would go all out for Christmas since we were robbed of it when we were young.”
The Reicharts have recently experienced sad holidays. Joan, 72, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in December 2020, following a grueling struggle with triple-negative breast cancer.
“She couldn’t catch a break,” he explained. “She kept getting hit with one thing right after another.”
Determined to make lasting memories for Joan despite her health issues, John set out to outdo the couple’s prior Christmases this year by doing something unique for Joan: lighting up his neighborhood by decorating every house on his block for the holidays.
“We would always light up our house for Christmas, but it was nothing like this,” he stated. “I went all-in on the lights this year.”
The Reicharts’ story goes viral
John decided to decorate his neighborhood with Christmas lights in late September, when most people were decorating their homes for Halloween. He made weekly trips to hardware stores to load up on LED lights, spending hundreds of dollars of his cash.
Afterward, he spent virtually every night in his garage creating the decorations before planting them in the yards of his neighbors who wanted to join.
Frank Ewurs, a neighbor, has been planning to place permanent lighting on his home for some time. When he spotted John putting Christmas lights in people’s yards, he decided to talk to him.
“I started talking to him and discovered he was doing all this himself and doing it for his wife, and that really touched me,” Ewurs told the reporter.
Ewurs, 45, relocated to Indianola two years ago with his wife and two children. He stated that he had never spoken with John until witnessing him set up the Christmas lights.
“I got to talking to him a little more and found out that we were both military veterans and had similar interests,” Ewurs told me. “We kind of just been friends since then.”
Ewurs assisted John in finishing the lights on the last houses on the street, and by the second week of November, nearly every property on E. Franklin Avenue had its own bespoke LED lighting under the soffit, as well as a nine-foot LED Christmas tree for the yard.
Almost immediately, Indianola people rushed to see the properties on John’s block. Then, as word spread and local news organizations covered the tale, John began receiving visits from all across the state.
By Thanksgiving, the Reicharts’ tale had gone international, with the beautifully lighted neighborhood featured on the CBS Evening News, followed by the Washington Post and BBC News.
“In the last month or so, I’ve been interviewed by people from Canada and the Netherlands,” he told me. “The attention this has gotten has been truly something else.”
When motorists drive down E. Franklin Avenue, they almost always see John and Joan sitting in their garage, wrapped up and dishing out hot chocolate.
There was only one problem with all the decorations: there wasn’t somewhere to place them. This prompted John to acquire a new shed to hold the lights, which he claimed cost more than $20,000.
“I told [John] that’s going to cost a lot of money, and I already knew how much money he had put into the lights and all the medical bills with his wife,” according to Ewurs. “I told him maybe we could take up a collection in the neighborhood or set up a GoFundMe.”
Initially hesitant, John agreed to Ewurs setting up a GoFundMe account and a P.O. Box on his behalf. Since the GoFundMe campaign began in late November, more than $10,000 has been contributed, and John has received over 2,000 cards from all 50 states and around the world.
Ewurs expressed gratitude for the outpouring of support for Joan and John, who have inspired others and brought the community together.
“Their story has brought people in the neighborhood together — I’ve met more people in the neighborhood since John began doing this than I knew prior,” Ewurs told reporters. “His love for his wife and Christmas is heartwarming and means a lot to people in our community.”
With the popularity of the Christmas lights on his block this year, John said he has started his own Christmas tradition, which he plans to carry on for many years.
“Even if [Joan] passes away, I’m still going to do it as a way to remember her,” John told the audience.